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SHAKESPEARE'S 



TRAGEDY OF MACBETH 



WITH 



Introduction, and Notes Explanatory and Critical 

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND CLASSES 
BY THE 

REV. HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D. 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO - LONDON 



A* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. 

811.5 



Wbt gtftenaum jlregjg 

GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



his Sons. 



DUNCAN, King of Scotland. 

Malcolm, 

Donalbain, 

Macbeth, 1 Generals f his Army. 

... NQUO, -» 

Macduff, * 
Lennox, 
Ross, 
Menteith, 

Angus, 
Caithness,. 
FLEANCE, Son to Banquo. 
SlWARD, Earl of Northumberland, 
General of the English forces. 



Thanes of Scotland. 



Young Siward, his Son. 
SEYTON, an Officer attending on 

Macbeth. 
Boy, Son to Macduff. 
An English Doctor. 
A Scotch Doctor. 
A Soldier. A Porter. 
An old Man. 

Lady MACBETH. 
Lady Macduff. 
Gentlewoman attending on Lady 

Macbeth. 
Hecate, and Witches. 



Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, Attendants, Messengers, 

and Apparitions. 

SCENE, in the end of the fourth Act, in England; through the rest of the 

Play, in Scotland. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — An Open Place. 
Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches. 

i 

I Witch. When shall we three meet again 
In thunder, lightning, and in rain ? 

47 



48 MACBETH. ACT I. 

2 Witch. When the hurlyburly's * done, j 

When the battle's lost and won. 
j\ Witch. That will be ere th' set of Sun. 
/ Witch. Where the place ? 
2 Witch. Upon the heath. 

J Witch. There to meet with Macbeth, 
i Witch. / come, gi r aymalkin / 
2 Witch. Paddock^ calls : — Anon!* 
All. Fair is foul, and foul is fair : 4 

Hover through the fog and filthy air./ [Exeunt. 

1 The origin and sense of this word are thus given by Peacham in his 
Garden of Eloquence, 1577 : " Onomatopeia, when we invent, devise, fayne, 
and make a name imitating the sound of that it signifyeth, as hurlyburly, for 
an uprore and tumultuous stirre." Thus also in Holinshed : " There were 
such hurlie burlies kept in every place, to the great danger of overthrowing 
the whole state of all government in this land." 

2 Grayfnalkin is an old name for a gray cat. — Paddock is toad; and toad- 
stools w 'ere called paddock-stools. — In the old witchcraft lore, witches are 
commonly represented as having attendants called familiars, which were 
certain animals, such as dogs, cats, toads, rats, mice, and some others. So 
in The Witch of Edmonton, by Rowley, Dekker, and Ford, ii. 



1 : — 



I have heard old beldams 
Talk of familiars in the shape of mice, 
Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, 
That have appear'd, and suck'd, some say, their blood. 

And in that play, mother Sawyer, the Witch, is attended by a black dog, or 
rather by a devil in that shape, who executes her commands. Generally, 
in fact, the familiar was supposed to be a devil assuming the animal's shape, 
and so waiting on the witch, and performing, within certain limits, whatever 
feats of mischief she might devise ; the witch to pay his service with the 
final possession of her soul and body. 

3 Anon/ was the usual answer to a call; meaning presently or immedi- 
ately. Here the toad, serving as familiar, is supposed to make a signal for 
the Witches to leave ; and Anon / is the reply. 

4 This is probably meant to signify the moral confusion or inversion 
which the Witches represent. They love storms and elemental perturba- 
tions ; and " fair is foul, and foul is fair " to them in a moral sense as well 
as in a physical. 






SCENE II. MACBETH. 49 



Scene II. — A Camp near Forres. 

Alarum within. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, 
Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant. 

Dun. What bloody man is that ? He can report, 
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt 
The newest state. 1 

Mai. This is the sergeant, 2 

Who like a good and hardy soldier fought 
'Gainst my captivity. — Hail, brave friend ! 
Say to the King thy knowledge of the broil 
As thou didst leave it. 

Serg. Doubtful it stood ; 

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together 
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald — 
Worthy to be a rebel, for, to that, 3 
The multiplying villanies of nature 
Do swarm upon him — from the Western Isles 
Of 4 kerns and gallowglasses is supplied ; 

1 " The newest state " is the latest condition. 

2 Sergeants, in ancient times, were not the petty officers now so called ; 
but men performing one kind of feudal military service, in rank next to 
esquires. 

3 To that end, or for that purpose ; namely, to make him a rebel. 

4 Of, here, has the force of with, the two words being often used indis- 
criminately. — Touching the men here referred to, Holinshed has the fol- 
lowing : " Out of Ireland in hope of the spoile came no small number of 
Kernes and Galloglasses, offering gladlie to serve under him, whither it 
should please him to lead them." Barnabe Rich thus describes them in 
his New Irish Prognostication : " The Galloglas succeedeth the Horseman, 
and he is commonly armed with a scull, a shirt of maile, and a galloglas- 
axe. The Kernes of Ireland are next in request, the very drosse and scum 
of the countrey, a generation of villaines not worthy to live." 



50 MACBETH. ACT I. 

And Fortune, on his damned quarrel 5 smiling, 

Show'd like a rebel's trull : but all's too weak ; 6 

For brave Macbeth, — well he deserves that name, — 

Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, 

Which smoked with bloody execution, 

Like valour's minion, 

Carved out his passage till he faced the slave ; 

And ne'er shook hands, 7 nor bade farewell to him, 

Till he unseam 'd him from the nave to th' chops, 8 

And fix'd his head upon our battlements. 

Dun. O valiant cousin ! worthy gentleman ! 

Serg. As whence the Sun gives his reflection 9 
Shipwrecking storms and direful t hunders break ; 
So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come 
Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark : 
No sooner justice had, with valour arm'd, 
CompelFd these skipping kerns to trust their heels, 

5 Quarrel was often used for cause. So in Bacon's essay Of Marriage 
and Single Life : " Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for mid- 
dle age, and old men's nurses ; so as a man may have a quarrel to marry 
when he will." See, also, the quotation from Holinshed in scene 4, note 9. 

6 Here, "is supplied" and "is too weak" are instances of the present 
with the sense of the perfect, and mixed up rather irregularly with preterite 
forms. 

7 To shake hands with a thing, as the phrase was formerly used, is to take 
leave of it. So Sir Thomas Browne, in his Religio Medici, 1643 : " I have 
shaken hands with delight in my warm blood and canicular days ; I perceive 
I do anticipate the vices of age ; " &c. 

8 Nave for navel, probably. Such a sword-stroke upwards seems rather 
odd, but queer things have often happened in mortal combats. So in Nash's 
Dido, Queen of Carthage, 1594 : " Then from the navel to the throat at once 
he ript old Priam." Also in Shadwell's Libertine, 1676 : " I will rip you from 
the navel to the chin." 

9 Refection is here put, apparently, for radiance or light. So that the 
place " whence the Sun gives his reflection " is the heavens cr the sky. See 
Critical Notes. 



SCENE II. MACBETH. 51 

But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage, 
With furbish'd arms 10 and new supplies of men 
Began a fresh assault. 

Dun. Dismay'd not this 

Our captains, 11 Macbeth and Banquo ? 

Serg. Yes ; 

As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion. 
If I say sooth, 12 I must report they were 
As cannons overcharged with double cracks ; 13 
So they redoubled strokes upon the foe : 
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds, 
Or memorize 14 another Golgotha, 
I cannot tell : — 
But I am faint, my gashes cry for help. 

Dun. So well thy. words become thee as thy wounds ; 
They smack of honour both. — Go get him surgeons. — 

[Exit Sergeant, attended. 
Who comes here ? 

Enter Ross. 

Mai. t The worthy Thane of Ross. 

Len. What haste 15 looks through his eyes ! So should 
he look 

10 That is, arms gleaming with unstained brightness ; fresh. — Surveying 
vantage is watching his opportunity. 

11 Here captains was probably meant to be a trisyllable, as if it were spelt 
capitains. We have the word used repeatedly so. 

12 Sooth is truth. So, originally, soothsayer was truth-speaker. 

13 Overcharged with double cracks is, as we should say, loaded with double 
charges ; crack being put for that which makes the crack. 

14 To memorize is to make fa?nous or memorable. Except is here equiva- 
lent to unless. " Unless they meant to make the spot as famous as Gol- 
gotha, I cannot tell what they meant" 

15 We should say, " What a haste." So in Julius Ccesar, i. 3 : " Cassius, 
what night is this ! " 



e 2 MACBETH. ACT I. 

That seems 16 to spe^k things strange. 

j? 0SSm God save the King ! 

Dun. Whence earnest thou, worthy thane ? 

R 0SSm From Fife, great King ; 

Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, 
And fan our people cold. 17 Norway himself, 
With terrible numbers, 
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor, 
The Thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict ; 
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof, 18 
Confronted him with self caparisons, 19 
Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, 
Curbing his lavish spirit : 20 and, to conclude, 
The victory fell onus; — 

T) U n. Great happiness ! 

Ross. - that 21 now 

16 It appears that to seem was sometimes used with the exact sense of to 
will or to mean. So, afterwards, in scene 5 : " Which fate and metaphysical 
aid doth seem to have thee crown'd withal." 

17 " The banners, proudly reared aloft and fluttering in the wind, seemed 
to mock or insult the sky, — ' laughing banners' ; while the sight of them 
struck chills of dread and dismay into our men." Flout and fan for flouted 
and fanned; instances of what is called " the historic present." See note 6. 

18 " Lapp'd in proof" is covered with impenetrable armour, or " armour 
of proof " as it is called. — Bellona was the old Roman goddess of war ; the 
companion and, as some thought, the sister of Mars. Steevens laughed at 
the Poet's ignorance in making her the wife of Mars ; whereas he plainly 
makes her the bride of Macbeth. 

19 Caparisons for arms, offensive and defensive ; the trappings and furni- 
ture of personal fighting. Here, as often, self is equivalent to selfsame. So 
that the meaning is, Macbeth confronted the rebel Cawdor with just such 
arms as Cawdor himself had. It was Scot against Scot. See Critical Notes. 

20 That is, checking or repressing his reckless ox prodigal daring. 

21 That was continually used with the force of so that or insomuch thai. 
— Composition for armistice or terms of peace; as in the phrase to compouna 
a quarrel. 






SCENE III. MACBETH. 53 

Sweno, the Norways' King, craves composition ; 
Nor would we deign him burial of his men, 
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's-Inch, 22 
Ten thousand dollars to our general use. 

Dun. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive 
Our bosom interest : — go pronounce his present death, 
And with his former title greet Macbeth. 

Ross. I'll see it done. 

Dun. What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene III. — A Heath. 
Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 

1 Witch. Where hast thou been, sister? 

2 Witch. Killing swine. 

j Witch. Sister, where thou? 

1 Witch. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, 

And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd Give me. 

i 
quoth I : 

Aroint thee} witch ! the rump-fed ronyon 2 cries. 

Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger : 

j/But in a sieve I'll thither sail, 

And, like a rat without a tail, 3 

22 Colmes is here a dissyllable. Co/me's Inch, now called Inchcomb, is a 
small island, lying in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it dedi- 
cated to St. Columb. Inch or inse, in Erse, signifies an island. 

1 Aroint thee! is an old exorcism against witches; meaning, apparently, 
away! stand off! or be gone! The etymology of the word is uncertain. 

2 Ronyon is said to be from ronger, French, which signifies to gnaw or 
corrode. It thus carries the sense of scurvy or mangy. — Rump-fed is, proba- 
bly, fed on broken meats or the refuse of wealthy tables. Some, however, 
take it to mean pampered ; fed on the best pieces. 

3 Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, says it was believed that 
witches " could sail in an egg-shell, a cockle or muscle-shell through and 



54 MACBETH. ACT I. 

I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do. 4 ' 
2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind. 
i Witch. Thou art kind. 5 
j Witch. And I another. 
i Witch. I myself have all the other ; 

And the very points they blow, 

All the quarters that they know 

I' the shipman's card. 6 

I will drain him dry as hay : 

Sleep shall neither night nor day 

Hang upon his penthouse lid ; 7 

He shall live a man forbid : 8 

Weary sev'n-nights nine times nine 

Shall he dwindle, peak> and pine : 9 

Though his bark cannot be lost, 

under the tempestuous seas." And in the Life of Doctor Fian, a notable 
Sorcerer: "All they together went to sea each one in a riddle or cive, and 
went in the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine making merrie, 
and drinking by the way in the same riddles or cives." — It was the belief 
of the times that, though a witch could assume the form of any animal she 
pleased, the tail would still be wanting. 

4 I'll do is a threat of gnawing a hole through the hull of the ship so as 
to make her spring a-leak. 

5 This free gift of a wind is to be taken as an act of sisterly kindness ; 
witches being thought to have the power of selling winds. 

6 The seaman's chart, which shows all the points of the compass, as we 
call them, marked down in the radii of a circle. 

7 " Penthouse lid " is eyelid protected as by a penthouse roof. So in 
Drayton's David and Goliah : " His brows like two steep penthouses hung 
down over his eyelids" 

8 To live forbid is to live under a curse or an interdict; pursued by an 
evil fate. — Sev'n-night is a week. 

9 To peak is to grow thin. This was supposed to be wrought by means 
of a waxen figure. Holinshed, describing the means used for destroying 
King Duff, says that the witches were found roasting an image of him before 
the fire; and that, as the image wasted, the King's body broke forth in 
sweat, while the words of enchantment kept him from sleep. 



SCENE III. MACBETH. 55 

Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd. 

Look what I have. 
2 Witch. Show me, show me. 
i Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb, 

Wreck'd as homeward he did come. 

Jl \_Drum within, 

j Witch, i A drum, a drum ! 

Macbeth doth come.y 

All. The Weird Sisters^ 10 hand in hand, 

Posters 11 of the sea and land, 

Thus do go about, about : 

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, 

And thrice again, to make up nine. 12 

Peace ! — the charm's wound up^ 

Enter Macbeth and Banquo. 

Macb. So foul and fair a day 13 I have not seen. 

10 Weird is from the Saxon wyrd, and means the same as the Latin fatum; 
so that weird sisters is the fatal sisters, or the sisters of fate. Gawin Doug- 
las, in his translation of Virgil, renders Parcce by weird sisters. Which 
agrees well with Holinshed in the passage which the Poet no doubt had in 
his eye: "The common opinion was, that these women were either the 
weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) the goddesse s ofdestinie, or else some 
nymphs or feiries, indued with knowledge of prophesie by their necroman- 
ticall science, bicause everie thing came to passe as they had spoken." 

11 Posters is rapid travellers ; going with a postman's speed. 

12 Here the Witches perform a sort of incantation by joining hands, and 
dancing round in a ring, three rounds for each. Odd numbers and multi- 
ples of odd numbers, especially three and nine, were thought to have great 
magical power in thus winding up a charm. 

13 A day fouled with storm, but brightened with victory. Professor Dow- 
den, however, thinks a deeper meaning is here intended : " Observe that the 
last words of the witches in the opening scene of the play are the first words 
which Macbeth himself utters : ' Fair is foul, and foul is fair.' Shakespeare 
intimates by this that, although Macbeth has not yet set eyes upon these 
hags, the connection is already established between his soul and them. 
Their spells have already wrought upon his blood." 



56 MACBETH. ACT I. 

Ban. How far is't call'd to Forres ? — What are these 
So wither'd and so wild in their attire, 
That look not like th' inhabitants o' the Earth, 
And yet are on't ? — Live you ? or are you aught 
That man may question ? You seem to understand me, 
By each at once her choppy finger laying 
Upon her skinny lips : you should be women, 
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret 
That you are so. 

Macb. Speak, if you can : what are you ? 

1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, Thane of 

Glamis ! 

2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, Thane of Caw- 

dor ! 

J Witch. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter ! 

Ban. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear 
Things that do sound so fair ? — I' the name of truth, 
Are ye fantastical, 14 or that indeed 
Which outwardly ye show ? My noble partner 
You greet with present grace and great prediction 
Of noble having and of royal hope, 
That he seems rapt withal : 15 to me you speak not : 

14 That is, " Are ye imaginary beings, creatures of fantasy ? " 

15 Here, again, that has the force of so that. — Present grace refers to 
noble having, and great prediction to royal hope; and the Poet often uses 
having for possession. A similar distribution of terms occurs a little after : 
"Who neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate." — Macbeth's rap- 
ture or trance of thought on this occasion is deeply significant of his moral 
predispositions. Coleridge remarks upon the passage as follows : " How 
truly Shakespearian is the opening of Macbeth's character given in the 
unpossessedness of Banquo's mind, wholly present to the present object ; an 

^unsullied, unscarified mirror! And how strictly true to nature it is that 
Banquo, and not Macbeth himself, directs our notice to the effect produced 
on Macbeth's mind, rendered temptable by previous dalliance of the fancy 



SCENE III. MACBETH. '57 

If you can look into the seeds of time, 
And say which grain will grow and which will not, 
Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear 
Your favours nor your hate. 
i Witch. Hail ! 

2 Witch. Hail! 

3 Witch. Hail! 

i Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 

2 Witch.' Not so happy, yet much happier. 

j Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. 

All Three. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo ! 
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail ! 

Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more : 
By Sinel's death I know I'm Thane of Glamis ; 16 
But how of Cawdor ? the Thane of Cawdor lives, 
A prosperous gentleman ; 17 and to be king 
Stands not within the prospect of belief, 
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence 
You owe 18 this strange intelligence ; or why 

with ambitious thoughts. Banquo's questions are those of natural curiosity, 
such as a girl would put after hearing a gipsy tell her school-fellow's fortune ; 
— all perfectly general, or rather planless. But Macbeth, lost in thought, 
raises himself to speech only by the witches being about to depart ; and all 
that follows is reasoning on a problem already discussed in his mind, — on 
a hope which he welcomes, and the doubts concerning the attainment of 
which he wishes to have cleared up." 

16 Macbeth was the son of Sinel, Thane of Glamis, so that this title was 
rightfully his by inheritance. 

17 We have a strange discrepancy here. In the preceding scene, Mac- 
beth is said to have met Cawdor face to face in the ranks of Norway : he 
must therefore have known him to be a rebel and traitor; yet he here 
describes him in terms quite inconsistent with such knowledge. 

18 To owe for to own, to have, to possess, occurs continually in Shake- 
speare. The original form of the word was owen ; and the shortened form 
of own finally carried the day against owe. 



58 MACBETH. ACT I, 

Upon this blasted heath you stop our way 

With such prophetic greeting : speak, I charge you. 

[Witches vanish, 

Ban. The earth hath bubbles as the water has, 
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd? 

Macb. Into the air ; and what seem'd corporal melted 
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd ! 

Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about ? 
Or have we eaten on the insane root 
That takes the reason prisoner? 19 

Macb. Your children shall be kings. 

Ban. You shall be king. 

Macb. And Thane of Cawdor too : went it not so ? 

Ban. To th' 20 selfsame tune and words. Who's here? 

Enter Ross and Angus. 

Ross, The King hath happily received, Macbeth, 
The news of thy success : and, when he reads 
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight, 
His wonders and his praises do contend 
What should be thine or his : 21 silenced with that, 

19 " The insane root " is henbane or hemlock. So in Batman's Commen* 
tary on Bartholome de Proprietate Rerum : " Henbane is called insana, mad, 
for the use thereof is perillous ; for if it be eate or dronke it breedeth mad- 
nesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is commonly called 
mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason." And in Greene's Never too 
Late : " You have gazed against the sun, and so blemished your sight, or 
else you have eaten of the roots of hemlock, that makes men's eyes conceit 
unseen objects." — On and of 'were used indifferently in such cases. 

20 The Poet, especially in his later plays, very often thus elides the, so as 
to make it coalesce with the preceding word into one syllable. So he has 
by th', for th', from th' , and even the double elision wi' th'. 

21 The meaning probably is, " His wonders and his praises are so earnest 
and enthusiastic, that they seem to be debating or raising the question, 
whether what is his ought not to be thine, — whether you ought not to be in 



SCENE III. MACBETH. 59 

In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day, 
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks, 
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make, 22 
Strange images of death. As thick as tale 
Came post with post, 23 and every one did bear 
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence, 
And pour'd them down before him. 

Angus. We are sent 

To give thee, from our royal master, thanks ; 
Only to herald thee into his sight, 
Not pay thee. 

Ross. And, for an earnest of a greater honour, 
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor : 
In which addition, 24 hail, most worthy Thane ! 
For it is thine. 

Ban. What, can the Devil speak true ? 

Macb. The Thane of Cawdor lives : why do you dress me 
In borrow'd robes. 

Angus. • Who was the thane lives yet ; 

But under heavy judgment bears that life 
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined 

his place." Such a thought, or seeming thought, on the King's part, would 
naturally act upon Macbeth as a further spur to his ambition. But that is 
a thought which the King of course cannot breathe aloud ; it would be a 
sort of treason to the State and to himself; he is silenced by it. See Critical 
Notes. 

22 That is, " not at all afraid of the death which you were dealing upon 
the enemy." The Poet often uses nothing thus as a strong negative. 

23 Meaning, " messengers came as fast as one can count'' The use of 
thick for fast occurs repeatedly. So we have speaks thick used of one who 
talks so fast that his words tread on each other's heels. — The Poet often has 
to tell also for to count. And we still say " keep tally " for " keep count!' 
So Milton in L' Allegro : " And every shepherd tells his tale " ; that is, counts 
the number of his sheep, or to see whether the number is full. 

24 Here, as often, addition is title, mark of distinction. 



60 MACBETH. ACT 

With those of Norway, or did line 25 the rebel 
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both 
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not ; 
But treasons capital, confess'd and proved, 
Have overthrown him. 

Macb. [Aside. .] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor! 

The greatest is behind. — [To Ross and Angus.] Thanks 

for your pains. — 
[Aside to Banquo.] Do you not hope your children shall be 

kings, 
When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me 
Promised no less to them ? 

Ban. [Aside to Macbeth.] That, trusted home, 26 
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, 
Besides the Thane of Cawdor. /But 'tis strange : 
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, 
The instruments of darkness tell us truths ; 
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's 
In deepest consequence. 27 —f- 
Cousins, a word, I pray you. 

Macb. [Aside.'] Two truths are told, 

As happy prologues to the swelling act 
Of the imperial theme. 28 — I thank you, gentlemen. — 

25 To line is to strengthen. The Poet has it repeatedly so. 

26 Shakespeare often thus uses home for thoroughly or to the uttermost. 
So in Measure for Measure, iv. 3 : " Accuse him home and homey 

^ Betray' s for betray us. The Poet has many such contractions. — It is 
nowise likely that Shakespeare was a reader of Livy ; yet we have here a 
striking resemblance to a passage in that author, Book xxviii. 42, 4 : " An 
Syphaci Numidisque credis? satis sit semel creditum : non semper temeri- 
tas est felix, et fraus fidem in parvis sibi prcestruit ut, quum operce pretium sit, 
cum mercede tnagna fallit." 

28 Happy is auspicious, like the Latin felix ; swelling is grand, imposing; 
and act is drama. Thus the image is of the stage, with an august drama 



scene III. MACBETH. 61 

\_Aside.~\ This supernatural soliciting 

Cannot be ill, cannot be good : if ill, 

Why hath it given me earnest of success, 

Commencing in a truth ? I'm Thane of Cawdor : Is 

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion 29 

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, 

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 

Against the use of nature ? Present fears 30 

Are less than horrible imaginings : 

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, 

Shakes so my single state of man, 31 that function 

Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is 

But what is not. 32 

Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt. 

of kingly state to be performe the inspiring prologue has been spoken, 
and the glorious action is about to commence. 

29 The use of suggestion for temptation was common in the Poet's time. 

— Macbeth construes the " prophetic greeting " into an instigation to mur- 
der, and accepts it as such, though while doing so he shudders at the con- 
ception. 

30 Fears for the objects of fear, dangers or terrors ; the effect for the cause; 

— a common figure of speech. 

31 « My thought, though it is only of a murder in imagination or fantasy, 
so disturbs my feeble manhood of reason." The Poet repeatedly uses single 
thus for weak ox feeble. 

82 That is, facts are lost sight of; he sees nothing but what is unreal, noth- 
ing but the spectres of his own fancy. So, likewise, in the preceding clause : 
the mind is crippled, disabled for its proper function or office by the appre- 
hensions and surmises that throng upon him. Macbeth's conscience here 
acts through his imagination, sets it all on fire, and he is terror-stricken, and 
lost to the things before him, as the elements of evil within him gather and 

I fashion themselves into the wicked purpose. Of this wonderful development 
of character Coleridge justly says : " So surely is the guilt in its germ ante- 

i rior to the supposed cause and immediate temptation." And again : 
" Every word of his soliloquy shows the early birth-date of his guilt. He 

(Wishes the end, but is irres^olve as to the means : conscience distinctly 
warns him, and he lulls it imperiettij. 



5 2 MACBETH. 



ACT I. 



Macb, [Aside.] If chance will have me king, why, chance 
may crown me, 
Without my stir. 

Ban. New honours come upon him, 

Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould 
But with the aid of use. 

Macb. [Aside.'] Come what come may, 

Time and the hour 33 runs through the roughest day. 

Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. 34 

Macb. Give me your favour : my dull brain was wrought 
With things forgotten. 35 Kind gentlemen, your pains 
Are register'd where every day I turn 
The leaf to read them. 36 Let us toward the King. — 
[Aside to Banquo.] Think upon what hath chanced ; and at 

more time, 
The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak 
Our free hearts 37 each to other. 

Ban. [Aside to Macbeth.] Very gladly. 

Macb. [Aside to Banquo.] Till then, enough. — Come, 
friends. [Exeunt. 

33 " Time and the hour " is an old reduplicate phrase occurring repeat- 
edly in the writers of Shakespeare's time. The Italians have one just like 
it, — il tempo e Vore. The sense of the passage is well explained by Heath : 
" The advantage of time and of seizing the favourable hour, whenever it 
shall present itself, will enable me to make my way through all obstruction 
and opposition. Every one knows the Spanish proverb, — 'Time and I 
against any two.' " 

34 "Stay upon your leisure" is s\z.y for ox await your leisure. 

35 "Was exercised or absorbed in trying to recall forgotten things." A 
pretext put forth to hide the true cause of his trance of guilty thought. 

36 He means that he has noted them down on the tablets of his memory 
See Hamlet, page 85, notes 20 and 21. 

37 " Speak our free hearts " is speak our hearts jreely. 



scene iv. MACBETH. 63 






Scene IV. — Forres. A Room in the Palace. 



Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, 

and Attendants. 

Dun. Is execution done oh Cawdor? Are not 
Those in commission yet return'd ? 

Mai. My liege. 

They are not yet come back. But I have spoke 
With one that saw him die ; who did report 
That very frankly he confess'd his treasons, 
Implored your Highness' pardon, and set forth 
A deep repentance : nothing in his life 
Became him like the leaving it ; he died 
As one that had been studied in his death * 
To throw away the dearest thing he owed 
As 'twere a careless trifle. 2 

Dun. There's no art 

To find the mind's construction in the face : 
He was a gentleman on whom I built 
An absolute trust. 3 — 

Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus, 

O worthiest cousin ! 
The sin of my ingratitude even now 
1 Was heavy on me : thou'rt so far before, 

1 That is, well instructed in the art of dying. 

2 "A careless trifle" is a trifle not worth caring for. Here as stands for 
as if Often so. 

3 Duncan's childlike spirit makes a moment's pause of wonder at the act 
of treachery, and then flings itself, like Gloster in King Lear, with still 
more absolute trust and still more want of reflection, into the toils of a far 
deeper and darker treason. — Moberly. 



64 MACBETH. act l 

That swiftest wing of recompense is slow 
To overtake thee. 4 Would thou hadst less deserved, 
That the proportion both of thanks and payment 
Might have been mine ! 5 only I've left to say, 
More is thy due than more than all can pay. 

Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe, 
In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness' part 
Is to receive our duties : and our duties 
Are to your throne and state children and servants ; 6 
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing 
Safe toward your love and honour. 7 

Dun. Welcome hither : 

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour 
To make thee full of growing. — Noble Banquo, 
That hast no less deserved, nor must be known 
No less to have done so, let me infold thee, 
And hold thee to my heart. 

Ban. There if I grow, 

The harvest is your own. 

Dun. My plenteous joys, 

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves 

4 The meaning is, " too slow to overtake thee." 

5 " That my return of thanks and payment might have been proportionable 
to thy deserts, or in due proportion with them." 

6 Duties is here put, apparently, for the faculties and labours of duty ; 
the meaning being, " All our works and forces of duty are children and ser- 
vants to your throne and state." Hypocrisy and hyperbole are apt to go 
together ; and so here Macbeth overacts the part of loyalty, and tries how 
high he can strain up his expression of it. We have a parallel instance in 
Goneril and Regan's finely-worded professions of love. Such high-pressure 
rhetoric is the right vernacular of hollowness. 

7 I am not quite clear whether this means " With a firm and sure purpose 
to have you loved and honoured," or, " So as to merit and secure love and 
honour from you." Perhaps both ; as the Poet is fond of condensing two 
or more meanings into one expression. 



SCENE IV. MACBETH. 65 

In drops of sorrow. 8 — Sons, kinsmen, thanes, 

And you whose places are the nearest, know 

We will establish our estate upon 

Our eldest, Malcolm ; whom we name hereafter 

The Prince of Cumberland : 9 which honour must 

Not unaccompanied invest him only, 

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine 

On all deservers. — From hence to Inverness, 

And bind us further to you. 

Macb. The rest is labour, which is not used for you. 10 
I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful 
The hearing of my wife with your approach : 
So humbly take my leave. 

Dun. My worthy Cawdor ! 

Macb. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland 7 that is 
a step 
On which I must fail down, or else overleap, 
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires I n 
Let not light see my black and deep desires : 

8 The gentle and amiable sovereign means that his joys swell up so high 
as to overflow in tears. The Poet has several like expressions. 

9 So in Holinshed : " Duncan, having two sons, made the elder of them, 
called Malcolm, Prince of Cumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him his 
successor in his kingdome immediatelie after his decease. Macbeth sorely 
troubled herewith, for that he saw by this means his hope sore hindered, 
began to take counsel how he might usurpe the kingdome by force, having 
a just quarrel so iO doe, (as he tooke the matter,) for that Duncane did 
what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of title and claime, which 
he might in time to come pretend, unto the crowne." Cumberland was 
then held in fief of the English crown. 

10 Which refers to rest, not to labour. " Even the repose, which is not 
taken for your sake, is a labour to me." 

11 We are not to understand from this that the present scene takes place 
in the night. Macbeth is evidently contemplating night as the time when 
the murder is to be done, and his appeal to the stars has reference to that. 



/ 



66 MACBETH. ACT I. 

The eye wink 12 at the hand ; yet let that be 

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. [Exit. 

Dun. True, worthy Banquo : 13 he is full so valiant, 
And in his commendations I am fed ; 
It is a banquet to me. Let's after him, 
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome : 
It is a peerless kinsman. {Flourish. Exeunt. 

Scene V. — Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle. 

Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter. 

Lady M. [Reads.] They met me in the day of success ; 
and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in 
them than mortal knowledge. When I burn'd in desire to 
question them further, they made themselves air, into which 
they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came 
missives 1 from the King, who all-haiFd me Thane of Caw- 
dor ; by which title, before, these Weird Sisters saluted me, 
and referred me to the coming on of time, with Hail, king 
that shalt be ! This have I thought good to deliver thee, my 
dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightst not lose the 
dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is prom- 
ised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell. 
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be 
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature ; 
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness 
To catch the nearest way /thou wouldst be great ; 

12 " Let the eye wink " is the meaning. Wink at is encourage ox prompt. 

13 During Macbeth's last speech Duncan and Banquo were conversing 
apart, he being the subject of their talk. The beginning of Duncan's speech 
refers to something Banquo has said in praise of Macbeth. 

1 Missives for messengers. So in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2 : " And 
with taunts did gibe my missive out of audience." 



scene v- MACBETH. 67 

Art not without ambition, but without 
/The illness 2 should attend it : what thou wouldst highly, 
That wouldst thou holily ; wouldst not play false, 
And yet wouldst wrongly win-/ thou'dst have, great Glamis, 
That which cries, Thus thou must do, 3 if thou have it. — 
An act which rather thou dost fear to do 
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither, 
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, 
And chastise with the valour of my tongue 
All that impedes thee from the golden round 
Which fate and metaphysical 4 aid doth seem 
To have thee crown'd withal. — 

Enter a Messenger. 

What is your tidings ? 

Mess. The King comes here to-night. 

Lady M. Thou'rt mad to say it : 

Is not thy master with him ? who, were't so, 
Would have inform'd for preparation. 

Mess. So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming : 
One of my fellows had the speed of him ; 
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more 

2 Illness in the sense, not only of wickedness, but of remorselessness or 
hardness of heart. — " Macbeth," says Coleridge, " is described by Lady Mac- 
beth so as at the same time to reveal her own character. Could he have 
every thing he wanted, he would rather have it innocently ; — ignorant, as, 
alas, how many of us are ! that he who wishes a temporal end for itself does 
in truth will the means ; and hence the danger of indulging fancies." 

3 Editors differ a good deal as to how much is here uttered by the voice 
which Lady Macbeth imagines speaking to her husband. See Critical 
Notes. 

4 Metaphysical for supernatural. So in Florio's World of Words, 1598 : 
" Metafisico, one that professeth things supernaturall." And in Minsheu's 
Spanish Dictionary, 1599 : " Metafisica, things supernaturall, metaphisickes." 
— For the use of seem, see page 52, note 16. 



68 MACBETH. ACT I. 

Than would make up his message. 

Lady M. Give him tending ; 

He brings great news. — / \Exit Messenger. 

'The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance 5 of Duncan 
Under my battlements. /-Come, you spirits 
That tend on mortal 6 thoughts, unsex me here ; 
/And fill me from the crown to th' toe top -full 
Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood ; 
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse,^ 
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my fell purpose, nor break peace between 
The effect and it ! 8 Come to my woman's breasts, 
And take my milk for gall, 9 you murdering ministers, 
Wherever in your sightless substances 

5 Meaning, probably, the raven has made himself hoarse with croaking, or 
has croaked so loud and long as to become hoarse, over the fatal entrance, 
&c. The figure of speech called prolepsis. Shakespeare has other allu- 
sions to the ominousness of the raven's croak ; as he also has many such 
proleptical, or anticipative , expressions. 

6 Mortal and deadly were synonymous in Shakespeare's time. Later in 
this play we have " the mortal sword," and " mortal gashes." — The spirits 
here addressed are thus described in Nashe's Pierce Pennilesse : " The 
second kind of devils, which he most employeth, are those northern Martii, 
called the spirits of revenge, and the authors of massacres, and seedsmen 
of mischief; for they have commission to incense men to rapines, sacrilege, 
theft, murder, wrath, fury, and all manner of cruelties." 

7 Remorse here means pity, the relentings of compassion ; as it generally 
does in the writings of Shakespeare's time. 

8 Peace is of course broken between the effect and the purpose when the 
two stand in conflict or at odds with each other ; that is, when the purpose 
remains unexecuted. See Critical Notes. 

9 " Take away my milk, and give me gall instead," is probably the mean- 
ing. In her fiery thirst of power, Lady Macbeth feels that her woman's 
heart is unequal to the calls of her ambition, and she would fain exchange 
her " milk of human kindness," for a fiercer infusion. 



scene v. MACBETH. 69 

You wait on Nature's mischief ! Come, thick night, 
And pall thee 10 in the dunnest smoke of Hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 11 
To cry Hold, hold 7 — 

Enter Macbeth. 

Great Glamis ! worthy Cawdor ! 
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter ! 
Thy letters have transported me beyond 
This ignorant present, and I feel now 
The future in the instant. 12 

Macb. My dearest love, 

Duncan comes here to-night. 

Lady M. And when goes hence ? 

Macb. To-morrow, — as he purposes. 

Lady M. O, never 

Shall Sun that morrow see ! 
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men 
May read strange matters : to beguile the time, 

10 " Thick night " is explained by " light thickens" later in the play. We 
still have the phrase " thick darkness." — To pall is to robe, to shroud, to 
wrap : from the Latin pallium, a cloak or mantle. 

11 The metaphor of darkness being a blanket wrapped round the world, 
so as to keep the Divine Eye from seeing the deed which Lady Macbeth 
longs and expects to have done, is just such a one as it was fitting for the 
boldest of poets to put into the mouth of the boldest of women. The old 
poets, however, were rather fond of representing night in some such way. 
So in Romeo and Juliet, iii. 2 : " Spread thy close curtain, love-performing 
night." Also in The Faerie Queene, i. 4, 44 : " Now whenas darksome night 
had all displayd her coleblacke curtein over brightest skye." And in Mil- 
ton's Ode on the Passion : " Befriend me, night ; over the pole thy thickest 
mantle throw." 

12 Instant in the Latin sense of instans; that which is pressing. The 
enthusiasm of her newly-kindled expectation quickens the dull present with 
the spirit of the future, and gives to hope the life and substance of fruition, 



70 MACBETH. ACT I. 

Look like the time ; 13 bear welcome in your eye, 
Your hand, your tongue : look like the innocent flower, 
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming 
Must be provided for : and you shall put 
This night's great business into my dispatch ; 
Which shall to all our nights and days to come 
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. 

Macb. We will speak further. 

Lady M. Only look up clear ; 

To alter favour 1 * ever is to fear : 
Leave all the rest to me. \Exeunt 

Scene VI. — The Same. Before Macbeth's Castle. 

Hautboys and torches. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donal- 
bain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and 
Attendants. 

Dun. 'This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air 
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
Unto our gentle senses. 1 / 

Ban. The guest of Summer, 

18 Time is here put for its contents, or what occurs in time. It is a time 
of full-hearted welcome and hospitality ; and such are the looks which Mac- 
beth is urged to counterfeit. 

14 Favour is countenance. — Lady Macbeth is here mad, or inspired, with 
a kind of extemporized ferocity, so that she feels herself able to perform 
without flinching the crime she has conceived, if her husband will only keep 
his face from telling any tales of their purpose. As Coleridge says, " hers 
is the mock fortitude of a mind deluded by ambition : she shames her hus- 
band with a superhuman audacity of fancy which she cannot support, but 
sinks in the season of remorse, and dies in suicidal agony." 

1 That is, " The air, by its purity and sweetness, attempers our senses to 
its own state, and so makes them gentle, or sweetens them into gentleness." 
Another proleptical form of speech. See page 68, note 5. 



SCENE VI. MACBETH. 71 

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, 2 
By his loved mansionry, that the heavens' breath 
Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze, 
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, 3 but this bird 
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle : 
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed 
The air is delicate. 4 — 

Enter Lady Macbeth. 

Dun. See, see, our honour'd hostess ! — 

The love that follows us sometime 5 is our trouble, 
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you 
How you shall bid God 'ield us 6 for your pains 
And thank us for your trouble. 

Lady M. All our service 

In every point twice done, and then done double, 
Were poor and single 7 business, to contend 

2 Approve in the sense of prove simply, or make evident. 

3 "Coigne of vantage" is a convenient nook or corner; coigne being a 
corner-stone at the exterior angle of a building. So in Coriolanus,v. 4: 
" See you yond coigne o' the Capital, — yond corner-stone? " 

4 The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so 
necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, 
and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeedSc 
This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who, from the midst of bat 
ties and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introduc- 
ing some quiet rural image or picture of familiar domestic life. — Sir J. 
Reynolds. 

5 Sometime and sometimes were used indiscriminately. 

6 " God yield us," that is, reward us. The Poet has yield or Held repeat- 
edly so. — To bid is here used in its old sense of to pray. So to bid the 
beads is to pray through the rosary. See Richard the Second, page 103, 
note 11. — The kind-hearted monarch means that his love is what puts him 
upon troubling them thus, and therefore they will be grateful for the pains 
he causes them. 

7 Here, again, too is understood before poor. Single, again, also, in the 
sense of weak or small. See page 61, note 31, and page 64, note 4. 



72 MACBETH. ACT I. 

Against 8 those honours deep and broad wherewith 
Your Majesty loads our House : for those of old, 
And the late dignities heap'd up to 9 them, 
We rest your hermits. 10 

Dun. Where's the Thane of Cawdor? 

We coursed him at the heels, and had a purpose 
To be his purveyor : n but he rides well ; 
And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp 12 him 
To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess, 
We are your guest to-night. 

Lady M. Your servants ever 

Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, 13 
To make their audit at your Highness' pleasure, 
Still to return your own. 

Dun. Give me your hand ; 

Conduct me to mine host : we love him highly, 
And shall continue our graces towards him. 
By your leave, hostess. 14 [Exeunt. 

8 " To contend against " here means to vie with, to counterpoise or match. 

9 Here, as often, to has the force of in addition to. 

10 That is," We remain as hermits or beadsmen to pray for you." — Here, 
again, I quote from Coleridge : " The lyrical movement with which this 
scene opens, and the free and unengaged mind of Banquo, loving Nature, 
and rewarded in the love itself, form a highly dramatic contrast with the 
laboured rhythm and hypocritical over-much of Lady Macbeth's welcome, 
in which you cannot detect a ray of personal feeling, but all is thrown upon 
the dignities, the general duty." 

11 Purveyor is, properly, one sent before, to provide food and drink for 
some person or party that is to follow. 

12 Holp is the old preterite of help. So in The Psalte?, generally. 

13 " Theirs, and what is theirs," means their kindred and dependants, and 
whatever belongs to them as property. — In compt is ready to answer, subject 
to account or reckoning. So in Othello, v. 2: "When we shall meet at 
compt, this look of thine will hurl my soul from Heaven, and fiends will 
snatch at it " : at compt for the day of reckoning, or the Judgment-day. 

14 " By your leave " is probably meant as a respectful prologue to a kiss. 



SCENE VII. MACBETH. 73 



Scene VII. — The Same. Macbeth's Castle. 

Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, 1 and divers Servants 
with dishes and service, and pass over the stage. Thett 
enter Macbeth. 

Macb. 4f it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well 
It were done quickly \f if th' assassination 
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, 
With his surcease, success ; 3 that but this blow 
Might be the be-all and the end-all here, 
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, 
We'd jump 4 the life to come. But in these cases 
We still have judgment here ; that 5 we but teach 
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return 

1 An officer so called from his placing the dishes on the table. From 
the French essayeur, used of one who tasted each dish to show that there 
was no poison in the food. 

2 " If all were done when the murder is done, or if the mere doing of the 
deed were sure to finish the matter, then the quicker it were done the bet- 
ter." He then goes on to amplify and intensify the same thought in other 
language : " If the murdering of Duncan could be secure against all after- 
claps," &c. 

8 That is, if the assassination could foreclose or shut off all sequent 
issues, and end with itself. His for its, referring to assassination. So his 
was continually used. See Hamlet, page 47, note 8. — To trammel up is to 
entangle as in a net. So Spenser has the noun in The Faerie Queene, iii. 
9, 20 • " Her golden locks, that were in tramells gay upbounden." — Surcease 
is ; properly, a legal term, meaning the arrest or stay of a suit. So in Ba- 
con's essay Of Church Controversies : " It is more than time that there were 
an end and surcease made of this immodest and deformed manner of writ- 
ing," &c. — Here, as often, success probably has the sense of sequel, succes- 
sion, or succeeding events. So that to catch success is to arrest and stop off 
all further outcome, or all entail of danger. 

4 To jump is to risk, to hazard. Repeatedly so. 

5 That, in old English, often has the force of since or inasmuch as. 



74 MACBETH. ACT I. 

To plague th' inventor : this even-handed justice 
Commends th' ingredients of our poison'd chalice 
To our own lips. He's here in double trust : 
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, 
Strong both against the deed ; then, as his host, 
Who should against his murderer shut the door, 
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan 
Hath borne his faculties 6 so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against 
The deep damnation of his taking-off; 
And pity, like a naked new-born babe 
Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubin horsed 
Upon the sightless couriers 7 of the air, 
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
That tears shall drown the wind. A have no spur 
To prick the sides of my intent, but only 
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, 8 
And falls on th' other side. J- 

Enter Lady Macbeth. 

How now ! what news ? 
Lady M. He has almost supp'd : why have you left the 

•chamber? 
Macb. Hath he ask'd for me ? 

6 Faculties in an official sense ; honours, dignities, prerogatives, whatever 
pertains to his regal seat. 

7 " Sightless couriers of the air " means the same as what the Poet else- 
where calls "the viewless winds." — The metaphor of tears drowning the 
wind is taken from what we sometimes see in a thunder-shower; which is 
ushered in by a high wind ; but when the rain gets to falling hard, the wind 
presently subsides, as if strangled by the water. 

8 ^^"here stands for aim ox purpose ; as we often say such a one overshol 
himself, that is, overshot his mark or aim. 



scene VII. MACBETH. 75 

Lady M. Know you not he has ? 

Macb. |We will proceed no further in this business : / 
He hath honour'd me of late ; and I have bought 
Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
Which would 9 be worn now in their newest gloss, 
Not cast aside so soon. 

Lady M. Was the hope drunk 

Wherein you 'dress'd yourself? 10 hath it slept since? 
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale 
At what it did so freely ? From this time 
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard 
To be the same in thine own act and valour 
As thou art in desire ? Wouldst thou lack that 
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, 
And live a coward in thine own esteem, 
Letting / dare not wait upon L would, 
Like the poor cat i' the adage ? n 

Macb. Pr'ythee, peace : 

I dare do all that may become a man ; 
Who dares do more is none. / 

9 Would for should. The two were often used indiscriminately. 

10 Every student of Shakespeare knows that he often uses to address foi 
to make ready or to prepare. And he repeatedly has the shortened form 
'dress in the same sense. So in Troilus and Cressida, i. 3 : " As he being 
'dress'd to some oration." From oversight of this, some strange comments 
have been made upon the present passage, as if it meant that Macbeth had 
put on hope as a dress. The meaning I take to be something thus : " Was 
it a drunken man's hope, in the strength of which you made yourself ready 
for the killing of Duncan ? and does that hope now wake from its drunken 
sleep, to shudder and turn pale at the preparation which it made so freely?" 
In accordance with this explanation, the Lady's next speech shows that at 
some former time Macbeth had been, or had fancied himself, ready to make 
an opportunity for the murder. 

11 The adage of the cat is among Heywood's Proverbs, 1566 : " The cat 
would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete." 



76 MACBETH. 



ACT I. 



Lady M. What beast 12 was't, then, 

That made you break this enterprise to me ? 
When you durst do it, then you were a man ; 
And, to be more than what you were, you would 
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, 13 and yet you would make both : 
They've made themselves, and that their fitness now 
Does unmake you. I've given suck, and know 
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me : 
I would, while it was smiling in my face, 
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, 
And dash'd the brains on't out, had I so sworn 
As you have done to this. 14 

Macb. If we should fail, — 

Lady M. /We fail. 15 

But, screw your courage to the sticking-place, 16 

12 The word beast is exceedingly well chosen here -. it conveys a stinging 
allusion to what Macbeth has just said : " If you dare do all that may be- 
come a man, then what beast was it that put this enterprise into your head ? " 
See Critical Notes. 

13 Adhere in the sense of cohere ; that is, agree or consist with the pur- 
pose.— This passage seems to infer that the murdering of Duncan had 
been a theme of conversation between Macbeth and his wife long before 
the weird salutation. He was then for making a time and place for the 
deed ; yet, now that they have made themselves to his hand, he is unmanned 
by them. 

14 In reference to this most appalling speech, see the Introduction, page 36. 

15 The sense of this much-disputed passage I take to be simply this : " If 
we should fail, why, then, to be sure, we fail, and it is all over with us." So 
long as there is any hope or prospect of success, Lady Macbeth is for going 
ahead ; and she has a mind to risk all and lose all, rather than let slip any 
chance of being queen. And why should she not be as ready to jump the 
present life in such a cause as her husband is to " jump the life to come " ? 
See Critical Notes. 

16 A metaphor from screwing up the cords of stringed instruments to 
the proper tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking-place. 



scene vii. MACBETH. 77 

And we'll not fail. Avhen Duncan is asleep, — 
Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey 
Soundly invite him, — his two chamberlains 
Will I with wine and wassail so convince, 17 
That memory, the warder of the brain, 
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason 
A limbeck only : 18 when in swinish sleep 
Their drenched natures lie as in a death, 
What cannot you and I perform upon 
Th' unguarded Duncan? what not put upon 
His spongy 19 officers, who shall bear the guilt 
Of our great quell? 20 

Macb. #Bring forth men-children only ; 

For thy undaunted mettle should compose 
Nothing but males. / Will it not be received, 
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two 
Of his own chamber, and used their very daggers, 
That they have done't? 

17 To convince is to overcome or subdue. — Wassail is an old word for 
quaffing, carousing, or drinking to one's health ; meaning literally, be of 
health. 

18 The language and imagery of this strange passage are borrowed from 
the distillery, as it was in Shakespeare's time. Limbeck is alembic, the cap 
of a still, into which the fumes rise before passing into the condenser. Re- 
ceipt is receptacle, or receiver. The old anatomists divided the brain into 
three ventricles, in the hindmost of which, the cerebellum, the memory was 
posted like a keeper or sentinel to warn the reason against attack. When 
by intoxication the memory is converted to a fume, the sphere of reason 
will be so filled therewith as to be like the receiver of a still ; and in this 
state of the man all sense or intelligence of what has happened will be suf- 
focated. Such appears to be the meaning of the passage ; which is far 
from being a felicitous one. The Poet elsewhere uses fume thus ; as in 
Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 1 : " Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, keep 
his brain fuming." 

19 Spongy because they soak up so much liquor. 

20 Quell is murder; from the Saxon quellan, to kill. 



78 MACBETH. ACT II. 

Lady M. Who dares receive it other, 21 

As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar 
Upon his death ? 

Macb. I'm settled, and bend up 

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. 
Away, and mock the time with fairest show : 
False face must hide what the false heart doth know. 

\_Exeunt. 



ACT II. 



Scene I. — Inverness. Court of Macbeth's Castle. 
Enter Banquo, and Fleance bearing a torch before him. 

Ban. How goes the night, boy? 

Flea. The Moon is down ; I have not heard the clock. 

Ban. And she goes down at twelve. 

Flea. I take't, 'tis later, sir. 

Ban. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry ir 
Heaven ; l 
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. 
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, 
And yet I would not sleep. — Merciful powers, 
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature 
Gives way to in repose ! 2 — 

21 That is, "Who will dare to understand it otherwise?" — As is here 
equivalent to since or seeing that. 

1 The heavens are economizing their light. Frugality or economy is one 
of the old senses of husbandry. Heaven is here a collective noun. 

2 It appears afterwards that Banquo has been dreaming of the Weird 
Sisters. He understands full well how their greeting may act as an incen- 
tive to crime, and shrinks with pious horror from the poison of such evil 






SCENE I. MACBETH. 79 

Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch. 

Give me my sword. — 
Who's there ? 

Macb. & friend. 

Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest ? The King's a-bed : 
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and 
Sent forth great largess to your officers : 3 
This diamond he greets your wife withal, 
By th' name of most kind hostess ; and shut up 4 
In measureless content. 

Macb. Being unprepared, 

Our will became the servant to defect ; 5 
Which else should free have wrought. 

Ban. ' All's well. 

I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters : 
To you they've show'd some truth. 

Macb. I think not of them : 

Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, 
We'd spend it in some words upon that business, 
If you would grant the time. 

suggestions, and seeks refuge in prayer from the invasion of guilty thoughts 
even in his sleep. Herein his character stands in marked contrast with 
that of Macbeth, whose mind is inviting wicked thoughts, and catching 
eagerly at temptation, and revolving how he may work the guilty sugges- 
tions through into act. 

3 Officers are those having in charge the various branches of household 
work, such as cook, butler, &c. ; as the several rooms used for those 
branches were called offices. 

4 Shut up probably means composed himself to rest. The phrase may be 
a little quaint ; but I think it well expresses the act of closing one's mind to 
the cares and interests of the world. 

5 A man may be said to be the servant of that which he cannot help : 
and Macbeth means that his will would have made ampler preparation, but 
that it was fettered by want of time. 



8o MACBETH. ACT II. 

Ban. At your kind'st leisure. 

Macb. If you shall cleave to my consent, 6 when 'tis, 
It shall make honour for you. 

Ban. So I lose none 

In seeking to augment it, but still keep 
My bosom franchised, and allegiance clear, 
I shall be counsell'd. 

Macb. Good repose the while ! 

Ban. Thanks, sir : the like to you ! 

\_Exeunt Banquo and Fleance, 

Macb. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, 
<She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. — [Exit Servant., 
Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
The handle toward my hand?; Come, let me clutch thee. 
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
To feeling as to sight ? or art thou but 
A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 
I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
As this which now I draw : 
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going ; 
And such an instrument I was to use. — 
Mine eyes are made the fools o* the other senses, 
Or else worth all the rest. 7 I see thee still ; 

6 Meaning, apparently, " If you will stick to my side, to what has my 
consent; if you will tie yourself to my fortunes and counsel." 

7 Senses is here used with a double reference, to the bodily organs of 
sense and the inward faculties of the mind. Either his eyes are deceived 
by his imaginative forces in being made to see that which is not, or else his 
other senses are at fault in not being able to find the reality which his eyes 
behold. — Dudgeon, next line, is the handle or haft of the dagger : gouts is 
drops ; from the French gouttes. 



scene I. MACBETH. 8 1 

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, 

Which was not so before. — There's no such thing; 

It is the bloody business which informs 

Thus to mine eyes^. — Now o'er the one half world 

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 

The curtain'd sleep ; now witchcraft celebrates 

Pale Hecate's offerings ; 8 and wither'd murder, 

Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, 

Whose howl's his watch, 9 thus with his stealthy pace, 

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, 10 towards his design 

Moves like a ghost. — Thou sure and firm-set earth, 

Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear 

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, 11 

And take the present horror from the time, 

Which now suits with it. 12 — Whiles I threat he lives : 

Words to the heat of deeds too cool breath gives. 

[A bell rings. 

8 That is, makes offerings or sacrifices to Hecate, who was the Queen of 
Hades, the patroness of all infernal arts, and of course the mistress of all 
who practised them ; here called pale, because, under the name of Diana, 
she was identified with the Moon. The name is, properly, three syllables ; 
but Shakespeare and other dramatic poets use it as a dissyllable. 

9 Watch is here used, apparently, for signal. The figure is of the wolf 
acting as the sentinel of Murder, and his howl being the signal to give warn- 
ing of approaching danger. 

10 Strides did not always carry the idea of violence or noise, but was 
used in a sense coherent enough with stealthy pace. So in The Faerie 
Queene, iv. 8, 37 : " They passing forth kept on their readie way, with easie 
step so soft as foot could stryde." 

11 That is, " tell tales of where I have been," or " of my having been here." 
It seems to him as if the very stones might become apprehensive, divulge 
his dreadful secret, and witness against him. 

12 Macbeth would have nothing break through the universal silence that 
added such horror to the night, as well suited with the bloody deed he was 
about to perform. Burke, in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, ob- 
serves, that " all general privations are great because they are terrible." 



82 MACBETH. ACT II. 

L go, and it is done ; the bell invites me. — 
/ Hear it not, Duncan ; for it is a knell 
That summons thee to Heaven or to Hetty [Exit. 

Enter Lady Macbeth. 

Lady M. That which hath made them drunk hath made 
me bold ; 
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. 13 — Hark ! 

Peace ! 
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, 
Which gives the stern'st good-night. 14 He is about it : 
The doors are open ; and the surfeited grooms 
Do mock their charge with snores : I've drugged their pos- 
sets, 
That death and nature do contend about them, 
Whether they live or die. 

Macb. [ Within.'] Who's there ? what, ho ! 

Lady M. Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, 
And 'tis not done. Th' attempt and not the deed 
Confounds us. 15 Hark ! I laid their daggers ready ; 
He could not miss 'em. /riad he nojt resembled 
My father as he slept, I had done't.T — My husband ! 

13 Lady Macbeth has fired her courage by drinking some wine ; but, 
while she is kindled by drink, the grooms are stupefied, " their possets " 
having been drugged. 

14 The supposed ominousness of the owl's note is often alluded to by 
Shakespeare. The office of bellman, which the owl is here made to per- 
form, is well explained in Webster's Duchess of Malfi : " I am the common 
bellman, that usually is sent to condemn'd persons the night before they 
suffer." Lady Macbeth of course regards Duncan as the condemned per- 

- son to whom the " fatal bellman " gives " the stern'st good-night." 

15 " The attempt without the deed destroys or ruins us." The Poet often 
uses confound with this meaning. 

16 This little touch of nature is one of Shakespeare's most pregnant hints 
of character, and is enough of itself, I think, to upset the more common 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 83 

Enter Macbeth. 

Macb. I've done the deed. Didst thou not hear a 
noise ? 

Lady M. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. 
Did not you speak ? 

Macb. When ? 

Lady M. Now. 

Macb. As I descended? 

Lady M. Ay. 

Macb. Hark ! Who lies i' the second chamber? 

Lady M. Donalbain. 

Macb. \_L00king on his hands.'] This is a sorry sight. 

Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. 

Macb. There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried 
Murder / 
That they did wake each other : I stood and heard them : 
But they did say their prayers, and address'd 17 them 
Again to sleep. 

Lady M. There are two lodged together. 

Macb. One cried God bless us / and Amen / the other, 
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands, 18 
Listening their fear : I could not say Amen, 
When they did say God bless us / 

notion of Lady Macbeth. It tells us that, notwithstanding her appalling 
invocation to the " murdering ministers," her milk continues to be milk. 
And what a suggestive contrast it makes to the terrible audacity of thought 
and speech she has just displayed ! It is the tenderness of her woman's 
heart that causes her to see in the sleeping King an image of her father. 
See the Introduction, page 37. 

17 Address'd for composed ox prepared. See page 75, note 10. 

18 " As if they had seen me with these butcher's hands." As for as if is 
very frequent. — Hangman was used for executioner \n general, whether the 
work was done with rope or steel : hence, when beheading was common, 
the word contracted the sense of butcher. 



84 MACBETH. ACT u 

Lady M. Consider it not so deeply. 

Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce Amen ? 
I had most need of blessing, and Amen 
Stuck in my throat. 

Lady M. These deeds must not be thought 

After these ways : so, it will make us mad. 

Macb. Methought I heard a voice cry Sleep no more / 

. Macbeth does murder sleep ; — the innocent sleep, 

Sleep that knits up the ravelPd sleave 19 of care ; 

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, 

Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, 

Chief nourisher in life's feast, — / 

/ 
Lady M. What do you mean ? 

Macb. Still it cried Sleep no more ! to all the house : 
Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor 
i Shall sleep no more, — Macbeth shall sleep no more ! 

Lady M. Who was it that thus cried ? Why, worthy thane, 
You do unbend your noble strength, to think 
So brainsickly 20 of things. Go get some water, 
And wash this filthy witness from your hand. 
Why did you bring these daggers from the place ? 
They must lie there : go carry them, and smear 
The sleepy grooms with blood. 

Macb. I'll go no more : 

I am afraid to think what I have done ; 
Look on't again I dare not. 

19 Sleave is an old name for soft floss silk, such as is used for weaving. 
So in Drayton's Muses' Elysium : " Grass as soft as sleave or sarcenet ever 
was." So that to " knit up the ravell'd sleave of care," is to compose and 
put in trim for use the soft silk that care has ravelled out or discomposed. 

20 Brainsickly is insanely, crazily. Hamlet has brainish in the same 
sense. — To think is equivalent to in thinking ; an instance of the infinitive 
used gerundively, or like the Latin gerund. 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 



85 



Lady M. Infirm of purpose, 

/Give me the daggers.! the sleeping and the dead 

Are but as pictures ; 'tis the eye of childhood 

That fears a painted devil. 21 If he do bleed, 

I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal ; 

For it must seem their guilt. 22 / [Exit. Knocking within. 
Macb. Whence is that knocking? v 

How is't with me, when every noise appals me ? 

What hands are here? Ha ! they pluck out mine eyes ! 
^Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 

Clean from my hand ? No ; this my hand will rather 

The multitudinous sea incarnadine, 

Making the green — one red. 23 

Re-enter Lady Macbeth. 

Lady M. My hands are of your colour, but I shame 
To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.~\ I hear a 

knocking 
At the south entry : retire we 24 to our chamber. 
A little water clears us of this deed : 
How easy is it, then ! Your constancy 
Hath left you unattended. 25 [Knocking within.~\ Hark ! 

more knocking. 

21 With her firm self-control, this bold woman, when awake, was to be 
moved by nothing but facts : when her powers of self-control were unknit 
by sleep, then was the time for her to see things that were not, save in her 
own conscience. 

22 Here we have a seeming quibble between gild and guilt. But I sus- 
pect the Poet did not mean it so. This use of to gild was very common, 
and so might slip in unconsciously. 

23 Making the green water all red. So in Milton's Comus : " And makes 
one blot of all the air." — To incarnadine is to colour red. 

24 Retire we is plainly an instance of the first person in the imperative 
mood. See Hamlet, page 55, note 47. 

25 That is, "Your firmness hath forsaken you, doth not attend you." 



86 MACBETH. ACT II, 

Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us, 
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost 
So poorly in your thoughts. 

Macb. To know my deed, 'twere best not know my- 
f self. 26 — [Knocking within, 

t Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou couldst ! / 

[Exeunt 
Enter a Porter. Knocking within. 

Port. Here's a knocking indeed ! If a man were porter 
of hell-gate, he should have old 27 turning the key. — 
[Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock ! Who's there, i' the 
name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer that hang' 'd himself 
on the expectation of plenty. Come in time ; have napkins 28 
enough about you ; here you'll sweat for't. [Knocking.] 
Knock, knock ! Who's there, in the other devil's name ? 
Eaith, here's an equivocator that could swear in both the 
scales against either scale ; who committed treason enough for 

26 This is said in answer to Lady Macbeth's " Be not lost so poorly in 
your thoughts " ; and the meaning is, " While thinking of what I have done, 
it were best I should be lost to myself, or should not know myself as the 
doer of it." Macbeth is now burnt with the conscience of his deed, and 
would fain lose the memory of it. To know is another gerundial infinitive, 
and so has the force of in or while knowing. See note 20. 

27 Old was a common intensive or augmentative, used much as huge is 
now. — The Porter now proceeds to hold a dialogue with several imaginary 
persons at the door, who are supposed to be knocking for admission to a 
warmer place. — Coleridge and several others think this part of the scene 
could not have been written by Shakespeare. My thinking is decidedly dif- 
ferent. I am sure it is like him, I think it is worthy of him, and would by 
no means have it away. Its broad drollery serves as a proper foil to the 
antecedent horrors, and its very discordance with the surrounding matter 
imparts an air of verisimilitude to the whole. 

28 In the old dictionaries sudarium is explained " napkin or handkerchief, 
wherewith we wipe away the sweat." — " Come in time " probably means 
" you are welcome," 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 87 

God's sake, yet could not equivocate to Heaven?® O, come 
in, equivocator. \_Knocking^\ Knock, knock, knock ! Who's 
there ? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither for steal- 
ing out of a Frejich hose. 30 Come in, tailor ; here you may 
roast your goose. 31 \_Knocking.~] Knock, knock ; never at 
quiet ! What are you ? — But this place is too cold for Hell. 
I'll devil-porter it no further : I had thought to have let in 
some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the 
everlasting bonfire. 32 \_Xnocking.~\ Anon, anon ! I pray 
you, remember the porter. [ Opens the gate. 

Enter Macduff and Lennox. 

Macd. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, 
That you do lie so late ? 

Port. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock. 

Macd. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night. 

Port. That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me : but I re- 
quited him for his lie ; and, I think, being too strong for 

29 " Could not equivocate himself into Heaven," or could not win Heaven 
by equivocating, is the meaning. — To " swear in both the scales against either 
scale " is to commit direct and manifest perjury. 

30 Hose was used for what we call trousers. Warburton says, " The joke 
consists in this, that, a French hose being very short and strait, a tailor must 
be master of his trade who could steal any thing from thence." Others say, 
perhaps more truly, that the allusion is to a French fashion, which made 
the hose very large and wide, and so with more cloth to be stolen. 

31 A tailor's goose is the heavy " fiat-iron " with which he smoothes and 
presses his work ; so called because the handle bore some resemblance to 
the neck of a goose. 

32 Hereupon Mr. F. G. Fleay, in his Shakespeare Manual, has the follow- 
ing : " A bonfire at that date is invariably given in Latin Dictionaries as 
equivalent to pyra or rogus ; it was the fire for consuming the human body 
after death : and the hell-fire differed from the earth-fire only in being ever- 
lasting. This use of a word so remarkably descriptive in a double mean- 
ing is intensely Shakespearian." 



88 MACBETH. ACT II. 

him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a 
shift to cast him. 

Macd. Is thy master stirring ? — 
Our knocking has awaked him ; here he comes. 

Re-enter Macbeth. 

Len. Good morrow, noble sir. 

Macb. Good-morrow, both. 

Macd. Is the King stirring, worthy thane ? 

Macb. Not yet. 

Macd. He did command me to call timely on him : 
I've almost slipp'd the hour. 

Macb. I'll bring you to him. 

Macd. I know this is a joyful trouble to you ; 
But yet 'tis one. 

Macb. The labour we delight in physics pain. 33 
This is the door. 

Macd. I'll make so bold to call, 

For 'tis my limited 34 service. [Exit. 

Len. Goes the King hence to-day? 

Macb. He does ; — he did appoint so. 35 

Len. The night has been unruly : where we lay, 
Our chimneys were blown down ; and, as they say, 
Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death : 
And, prophesying, with accents terrible, 

33 To heal, to cure, to relieve, is the old meaning of to physic. 

34 The Poet repeatedly uses to limit in the exact sense of to appoint. 

35 Here we have a significant note of character. Macbeth catches him- 
self in the utterance of a falsehood, which, I take it, is something at odds 
with his nature and habitual feelings ; and he starts back into a mending 
of his speech, as from a spontaneous impulse to be true to himself. Much 
the same thing occurs before, when, upon his saying to his wife " Duncan 
comes here to-night," she asks, " And when goes hence ? " and he replies, 
" To-morrow, — as he purposes." 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 89 

Of dire combustion and confused events 
New hatch'd to th' woeful time, the obscene bird 
Clamour'd the livelong night : 36 some say the Earth 
Was feverous and did shake. 

Macb. 'Twas a rough night. 

Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel 
A fellow to it. 37 

Re-enter Macduff. 

Macd. O horror, horror, horror ! Tongue nor heart 
Cannot conceive nor name thee ! 

Macb. ) 

T Y What's the matter? 

Len. ) 

Macd. Confusion 38 now hath made his masterpiece ! 
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope 
The Lord's anointed temple, 39 and stole thence 
The life o' the building. 

Macb. What is't you say ? the life ? 

Len. Mean you his Majesty? 

Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight 
With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak ; 
See, and then speak yourselves. — \_Exeunt Macb. and Len, 

Awake, awake ! — 
Ring the alarum-bell. — Murder and treason ! — 
Banquo and Malcolm ! Donalbain ! awake ! 
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, 

36 " The obscene bird " is the owl, which was regarded as a bird of ill 
omen, and is here represented as a prophet of the direful events in ques- 
tion. Obscene is used in its proper Latin sense, ill-boding or portentous. 
See Critical Notes. 

37 Here, as often, fellow is equal. To parallel is to put alongside. 

38 Confusion for destruction ; as confound for destroy, before. 

39 In 1 Samuel, xxiv. 10, David speaks of King Saul as "the Lord's 
anointed " ; and St. Paul calls Christians " the temple of the living God." 



90 MACBETH. ACT II. 

And look on death itself ! up, up, and see 

The great doom's image ! 40 Malcolm ! Banquo ! all ! 

As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites, 

To countenance this horror. 41 \_Alarum-b ell rings. 

Re-enter Lady Macbeth. 

Lady M. What's the business, 
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley 
The sleepers of the house ? speak, speak ! 

Macd. O gentle lady, 

'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak : 
The repetition, in a woman's ear, 
Would murder as it fell. — 

Re-enter Banquo. 

O Banquo, Banquo ! 

Our royal master's murder'd. 

Lady M. Woe, alas ! 

What, in our house ? 42 

Ban. Too cruel anywhere, — 

Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself, 
And say it is not so. 

Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox. 

Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance, 
I had lived a blessed time ; for from this instant 

40 " The great doom " means the Judgment-day, of which this occasion 
is regarded as a representation. So in King Lear, v. 3 : " Is this the prom- 
ised end ? Or image of that horror ? " 

41 "To countenance this horror" is to put on a likeness of it ; to aug- 
ment or intensify it ; an effect which the further horror of men rising up as 
from the dead, and walking like ghosts, would naturally produce. 

42 Her ladyship's first thought appears to be, that she and her husband 
may be suspected of the murder, 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 91 

There's nothing serious in mortality : 43 

All is but toys : renown and grace is dead ; 

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 

Is left this vault to brag of. 44 
» 

Enter Malcolm and Donalbain. 

Don. What is amiss ? 

Macb. You are, and do not know't : 

The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood 
Is stopp'd, — the very source of it is stopp'd. 

Macd. Your royal father's murder'd. 

Mai. O, by whom ? 

Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't : 
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood ; 
So were their daggers, which, unwiped, we found 
Upon their pillows : 

They stared, and were distracted ; no man's life 
Was to be trusted with them. 

Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury, 
That I did kill them. 

Macd. Wherefore did you so ? 

Macb. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, 
Loyal and neutral, in a moment ? No man. 
The expedition 45 of my violent love 
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, 
His silver skin laced with his golden blood ; 46 

43 Mortality is here put for humanity, or the state of human life. 

44 Observe the fine links of association in wine and vault; the latter hav- 
ing a double reference, to the wine-vault and to the firmament over-arching 
the world of human life. 

45 Expedition for swiftness or haste. Repeatedly so. 

46 To gild with blood is a very common phrase in old plays. Johnson 
says, " It is not improbable that Shakespeare put these forced and unnat- 
ural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dis- 



92 MACBETH. ACT II. 

And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature 
For ruin's wasteful entrance : 47 there, the murderers, 
Steep 'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
Unmannerly breech'd with gore : 48 who could refrain, 
That had a heart to love, and in that heart 
Courage to make's love known ? 

Lady M. Help me hence, ho S 

Macd. Look to the lady. 

Mal. [Aside to Don.] Why do we hold our tongues, 
That most may claim this argument for ours ? 

Don. [Aside to Mal.] What should be spoken 
Here, where our fate, hid in an auger-hole, 49 
May rush and seize us ? Let's away : our tears 
Are not yet brew'd. 

Mal. [Aside to Don.] Nor our strong sorrow 
Upon the foot of motion. 

Ban. Look to the lady : — 

[Lady Macbeth is carried out. 5Q 

simulation, to show the difference between the studied language of hypoc- 
risy and the natural outcries of sudden passion. The whole speech, so 
considered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it consists entirely of 
antithesis and metaphor." 

47 The image is of a besieging army making a breach in the walls of a 
city, and thereby opening a way for general massacre and pillage. 

48 This probably means rudely covered, dressed, trousered with blood. 
A metaphor harsh and strained enough. 

49 " Where there is no hiding-place so small but that murder may be 
lurking therein, ready to spring upon us at any moment." The Princes 
divine at once that their father has been murdered for the crown, and that 
the same motive means death to themselves as well. 

50 Some regard this swoon as feigned, others as real. The question is 
very material in the determining of Lady Macbeth's character. If feigned, 
why was it not done when the murder of Duncan was announced? The 
announcement of these additional murders takes her by surprise ; she was 
not prepared for it ; whereas in the other case she had, by her fearful energy 
of will, steeled her nerves up to it beforehand. As Professor Dowden justly 






scene I. MACBETH. 93 

And when we have our naked frailties hid, 51 

That suffer in exposure, let us meet, 

And question this most bloody piece of work, 

To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us : 

In the great hand of God I stand ; and thence 

Against the undivulged pretence I fight 

Of treasonous malice. 52 

Macd. And so do I. 

All. So all. 

Macb. Let's briefly 53 put on manly readiness, 
And meet i' the hall together. 

All. Well contented. 

\Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain 

Mai. What will you do ? Let's not consort with them : 
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office 
Which the false man does easy. I'll to England. 

Don. To Ireland, I ; our separated fortune 
Shall keep us both the safer : where we are, 
There's daggers in men's smiles : the near' in blood, 
The nearer bloody. 54 

observes, " For dreadful deeds anticipated and resolved upon, she has 
strength ; but the surprise of a novel horror, on which she has not counted, 
deprives her suddenly of consciousness: when Macbeth announces his 
butchery of Duncan's grooms, the lady swoons, — not in feigning but in 
fact, — and is borne away insensible." 

51 Banquo and the others who slept in the castle have rushed forth un- 
dressed. This is what he. refers to in "our naked frailties." 

52 The natural construction is, " and thence I fight against the undivulged 
pretence of treasonous malice." Pretence here means intention or pur- 
pose. A frequent usage. So the verb, a little further on : " What good 
could they pretend ? " 

53 Briefly, here, is quickly or speedily. Often so. — "Manly readiness" 
probably means man's attire ; the opposite of " naked frailties." 

54 Meaning that he suspects Macbeth, who is the next in blood, or kin.— 
The Poet sometimes uses the form of the positive with the sense of the 



94 MACBETH. ACT II. 

Mai. This murderous shaft that's shot 

Hath not yet lighted ; 55 and our safest way- 
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse ; 
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking, 56 
But shift away : there's warrant in that theft 
Which steals itself when there's no mercy left. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. Without the Castle. 
Enter Ross and an old Man. 

Old M. Threescore-and-ten I can remember well : 
Within the volume of which time I've seen 
Hours dreadful and things strange ; but this sore night 
Hath trifled former knowings. 

Ross. Ah, good father, 

Thou seest, the Heavens, as troubled with man's act, 
Threaten his bloody stage : by th' clock 'tis day, 
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp. 
Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame, 
That darkness does the face of Earth entomb, 
When living light should kiss it ? 

Old M. 'Tis unnatural, 

Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last, 
A falcon, towering in her pride of place, 1 
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd. 

comparative; which is indicated here by the printing, near', for nearer. 
See King Richard the Second, page 102, note 8. 

55 Suspecting this murder to be the work of Macbeth. Malcolm thinks it 
could have no purpose but what himself and his brother equally stand in 
the way of; that the "murderous shaft" must pass through them to reach 
its mark. 

56 That is, punctilious or particular about leave-taking. 
1 A phrase in falconry for soaring to the highest pitch. 



SCENE II. MACBETH. 95 

Ross. And Duncan's horse', 2 — a thing most strange and 
certain, — 
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, 
Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, 
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make 
War with mankind. 

Old M. Tis said they eat each other. 3 

Ross. They did so, to th' amazement of mine eyes 
That look'd upon't. Here comes the good Macduff. — 

Enter Macduff. 

How goes the world, sir, now ? 

Macd; Why, see you not? 

Ross. Is't known who did this more than bloody deed ? 

Macd. Those that Macbeth hath slain. 

Ross. Alas, the day ! 

What good could they pretend ? 

Macd. They were suborn'd : 4 

Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons, 
Are stol'n away and fled ; which puts upon them 
Suspicion of the deed. 

Ross. 'Gainst nature still : 

Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up 5 
Thine own life's means ! Then 'tis most like 
The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. 

2 In divers cases, the Poet uses the form of the singular with a plura. 
sense ; as horse' for horses, house 1 for houses, corpse for corpses, &c. 

3 Holinshed relates that, after King Duff's murder, " there was a sparhawk 
strangled by an owl" and that " horses of singular beauty and swiftness did 
eat their ownfiesh? 

4 Suborned is a technical term in law for bribed or hired. So we have the 
phrases "suborn false witnesses," and "subornation of perjury." 

5 To ravin i p is to consume or devour ravenously. The Poet elsewhere 
has ravin dow t in exactly the same sense. 



9 6 MACBETH. ACT n< 

Macd. He is already named, and gone to Scone 
To be invested. 

Ross. Where is Duncan's body? 

Macd. Carried to Colme-kill, 6 
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors, 
And guardian of their bones. 

Ross - Will you to Scone? 

Macd. No, cousin, I'll to Fife. 

Ross - Well, I will thither.? 

Macd. Well, may you see things well done there; adieu ! 
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new / 8 

Ross. Farewell, father. 

Old M. God's benison 9 go with you, and with those 
That would make good of bad, and friends of foes / 

[Exeunt. 

6 Colme-kill is the famous Iona, one of the Western Isles mentioned by 
Holmshed as the burial-place of many ancient kings of Scotland Colme- 
kill means the cell or chapel of St. Columba. The place was visited by 
Dr. Johnson during his tour in Scotland, and drew from him the following 
memorable passage: "We were now treading that illustrious island which 
was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and 
rovmg barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of 
religion. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as 
may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been 
dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied 
whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or 
whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona." 

7 That is, " I will go to Scone." 

8 This latter clause logically connects with "see things well done there" • 
adieu! being awkwardly thrust in for a rhyming couplet. 

9 Benison is blessing, and is used whenever the verse requires a trisylla- 
ble. The opposite sense was expressed by malison. 



scene I. MACBETH. 97 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — Forres. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter Banquo. 

Ban. /Thou hast it now, — king, Cawdor, Glamis, all 
As the Weird Women promised ; and I fear 
Thou play'dst most foully for't /yet it was said 
It should not stand in thy posterity ; 
But that myself should be the root and father 
Of many kings. If there come truth from them, — 
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine, 1 — 
Why, by the verities on thee made good, 
May they not be my oracles as well, 
And set me up in hope ? But, hush ! no more. 

Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth, as King; Lady Macbeth, 
as Queen ; Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants. 

Macb. Here's our chief guest. 

Lady M. If he had been forgotten, 

It had been as a gap in our great feast, 
And all things unbecoming. 2 

Macb. To-night we hold a solemn supper, 3 sir, 
And I'll request your presence. 

1 Their speeches prosper, or appear in the lustre of manifest truth ; a con- 
spicuous instance, to warrant belief in their predictions. 

2 That is, such an oversight would have disordered the whole feast, and 
rendered all things unfitting and discordant. 

3 This was the phrase of Shakespeare's time for a feast or banquet given 
on a particular occasion, to solemnize any event, as a birth, marriage, coro- 
nation. 



98 MACBETH. ACT III. 

Ban. Lay your Highness* 

Command upon me ; to the which my duties 
Are with a most indissoluble tie 
For ever knit. 

Macb. Ride you this afternoon? 

Ban. Ay, my good lord. 

Macb. We should have else desired your good advice — 
Which still hath been both grave and prosperous — 
In this day's Council ; but we'll take to-morrow. 
Is't far you ride ? 

Ban, As far, my lord, as will fill up the time 
'Twixt this and supper : go not my horse the better, 4 
I must become a borrower of the night 
For a dark hour or twain. 

Macb. Fail not our feast. 

Ban. My lord, I will not. 

Macb. We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd 
In England and in Ireland ; not confessing 
Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers 
With strange invention : but of that to-morrow ; 
When, therewithal, we shall have cause of State 
Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse : adieu, 
Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you ? 

Ban. Ay, my good lord : our time does call upon's. 

Macb. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot ; 
And so I do commend you to their backs. 
Farewell. — [Exit Banquq 

Let every man be master of his time 
Till seven at night : to make society 
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself 

4 Probably meaning, " If 'my horse go not better than usual. 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 



99 



Till supper-time alone : while then, God b' wi' you ! 5 — 

[Exeunt all but Macbeth and an Attendant, 
Sirrah, a word with you : attend those men 
Our pleasure ? 

Atten. They are, my lord, without the palace-gate. 

Macb. Bring them before us. — , [Exit Attendant. 

/To be thus is nothing, 
But to be safely thus. 6/' Our fears in 7 Banquo 
Stick deep ; and in his royalty of nature 
Reigns that which would 8 be fear'd : 'tis much he dares ; 
And, to 9 that dauntless temper of his mind, 
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour 
To act in safety. There is none but he 
Whose being I do fear : and under him 
My Genius is rebuked ; as, it is said, 
Mark Antony's was by Caesar's. 10 He chid the Sisters, 
When first they put the name of king upon me, 

5 " God be with you " is the original of our phrase good by; and the text 
here aptly illustrates the process of the contraction : God be with you, God 
b' wi' you, God by you, good by. — While here, means until; a sense in 
which it was often used. See King Richard the Second, page 57, note 13. 
And even in Defoe's Colonel Jack : " I could not rest night or day while I 
made the people easy from whom the things were taken." 

6 That is, "nothing, without being safely thus," or, "unless we be safely 
thus." The exceptive but, from be out, is used repeatedly so by the Poet. 
See Hamlet, page 68, note 3. 

7 Here in has the force of on account of. So in Julius Ccesar, ii. 1 : 
" There is no fear in him ; let him not die." Spoken upon the question of 
putting Antony to death along with Caesar. 

8 Would, again, for should. See page 75, note 9. — " Royalty of nature " 
is royal or noble nature. The Poet has many like forms of expression. See 
Hamlet, page 61, note 24. 

9 To, again, for in addition to. See page 72, note 9. 

10 Octavius Caesar is the person referred to. In Antony and Cleopatra^ 
ii. 3, genius is explained by the words demon, angel, and " thy spirit which 
keeps thee." 



IOO MACBETH. ACT III. 

And bade them speak to him ; then, prophet-like, 

They hail'd him father to a line of kings : 

Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, 

And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, 

Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, 

No son of mine succeeding. If t be so, 

For Banquo's issue have I filed u my mind ; 

For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd ; 

Put rancours in the vessel of my peace 

Only for them ; and mine eternal jewel 12 

Given to the common enemy of man, 

To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings ! 

Rather than so, come, fate, into the list, 

And champion me to th' utterance ! 13 — Who's there? — 

Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers. 

Now go to th' door, and stay there till we call. — 

[Exit Attendant. 
Was it not yesterday we spoke together ? 

j Mur. It was, so please your Highness. 

Macb. Well then, now 

Have you consider'd of my speeches ? Know 

11 File for defile. So in Wilkins's Inforced Marriage : " Oaths are nec- 
essary for nothing ; they pass out of a man's mouth like smoke through a 
chimney, that files all the way it goes." Foul and filth are from the same 
original. 

12 " Eternal jewel " is immortal soul. So in Othello, iii. 3 : " Or, by the 
worth of man's eternal soul." 

13 Champion me is be my antagonist, or fight it out with me in single com- 
bat ; the only instance I have met with of champio?i so used. — To th' utter- 
ance is to the uttermost, or to the last extremity. So in Cotgrave : " Com- 
batre a oultrance : — To fight at sharp, to fight it out, or to the uttermost." 
So that the sense of the passage is, " Let Fate, that has decreed the throne 
to Banquo's issue, enter the lists in support of its own decrees, I will fight 
against it to the last extremity, whatever be the consequence." 



scene I. MACBETH. IOI 

That it was he, in the times past, which held you 

So under fortune ; which you thought had been 

Our innocent self : this I made good to you 

In our last conference, pass'd in probation 14 

With you, how you were borne in hand ; 15 how cross'd ; 

The instruments ; who wrought with them ; 

And all things else that might to half a soul 

And to a notion 16 crazed say Thus did Banquo. 

I Mur. You made it known to us. 

Macb. I did so ; and went further, which is now 
Our point of second meeting. Do you find 
Your patience so predominant in your nature, 
That you can let this go ? Are you so gospell'd, 
To pray 17 for this good man and for his issue, 
Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave, 
And beggar'd yours for ever ! 

I Mur. We are men, my liege. 

Macb. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men ; 
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are clept 18 
All by the name of dogs : the valued file 19 

14 Probation here means proof, or rather the act of proving. 

15 To bear in hand is to encourage or lead on by false assurances and 
expectations. So used several times by the Poet. — In what follows, cross'd 
is thwarted or baffled ; instruments is agents ; and the general idea is, that 
Banquo has managed to hold up their hopes, while secretly preventing frui- 
tion ; thus using them as tools, and cheating them out of their pay. 

16 Notion for understanding ox judgment. Repeatedly so. 

17 Alluding to the Gospel precept, " Pray for them which despitefully use 
you." " So gospell'd as to pray," of course. 

!8 Shoughs are shaggy dogs : now called shocks. — Clept is an old word 
for called. Shakespeare has it repeatedly so. 

19 " The valued file " is the list or schedule wherein their value and pe- 
culiar qualities are discriminated and set down. 



102 MACBETH. A3T III, 

Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, 
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one 
According to the gift which bounteous Nature 
Hath in him closed ; whereby he does receive 
Particular addition, 20 from the bill 
That writes them all alike : and so of men. 
Now, if you have a station in the file, 
And not i' the worser rank of manhood, say't ; 
And I will put that business in your bosoms, 
Whose execution takes your enemy off; 
Grapples you to the heart and love of us, 
Who wear our health but sickly in his life, 
Which in his death were perfect. 

2 Mur. I am one, my liege s 

Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world 
Have so incensed, that I am reckless what 
I do to spite the world. 

i Mur. And I another 

So wearied with disasters, tugg'd with fortune, 
That I would set my life on any chance, 
To mend it, or be rid on't. 

Macb. Both of you 

Know Banquo was your enemy. 

Both Mur. True, my lord. 

Macb. So is he mine ; and in such bloody distance, 21 
That every minute of his being thrusts 
Against my near'st of life : and though I could 

20 Addition, again, for title or note of distinction. See page 59, note 24. 

21 Distance here carries the sense of degree or meastire. It is a term of 
fencing for the space between two antagonists. When men are in a hot 
mortal encounter with swords, they stand at just the right distance apart for 
the bloodiest strokes or thrusts. Hence the word came to be used for enmih 
m general. 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 1 03 

With barefaced power sweep him from my sight, 
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not, 
For 22 certain friends that are both his and mine, 
Whose loves I. may not drop ; but wail his fall 23 
Who I myself struck down : and thence it is, 
That I to your assistance do make love ; 
Masking the business from the common eye 
For sundry weighty reasons. 

2 Mur. We shall, my lord, 

Perform what you command us. 

1 Mur. Though our lives — 

Macb. Your spirits shine through you. Within this hout 
at most, 
I will advise you where to plant yourselves ; 
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time, 24 
The moment on't ; for't must be done to-night, 
And something from the palace : always thought 
That I require a clearness. 25 And, with him, — 
To leave no rubs 26 nor botches in the work, — 
Fleance his son, that keeps him company, 
Whose absence is no less material to me 
Than is his father's, must embrace the fate 
Of that dark hour. E.esolve yourselves apart : 
I'll come to you anon. 

22 For is here because of, or on account of. Repeatedly so. 

23 The language is elliptical ; the sense being " but / must wail." 

24 Will furnish you with an exact and sure note or signal of the time when 
to strike ; which is probably done by or through the third murderer, who 
joins them just before the murder is done. The success of the undertaking 
depends on the assault being rightly timed. So that " the perfect spy of the 
time " is the sure means of spying or knowing the time. 

25 That is, " it being always borne in mind that I must stand clear of 
blame or suspicion." 

26 Rubs is hindrances or impediments. See Hamlet, page 127, note 7. 



104 MACBETH. ACT III. 

Both Mur. We are resolved, my lord. 

Macb. I'll call upon you straight : 27 abide within. — 

\_Exeunt Murderers. 
It is concluded : Banquo, thy soul's flight, 
If it find Heaven, must find it out to-night. \_Exit 

Scene II. — The Same. Another Room. 
Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant. 

Lady M. Is Banquo gone from Court ? 

Serv. Ay, madam, but returns again to-night. 

Lady M. Say to the King, I would attend his leisure ] 
For a few words. 

Serv. Madam, I will. [Exit. 

Lady M. Nought's had, all's spent, 

Where our desire is got without content : 
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy 
Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy. — 

27 Straight for straightway \ presently. So the word was often used in all 
sorts of writing, verse and prose. See Hamlet, page 199, note 1. 

1 " Attend his leisure " is wait for him to be at leisure. — Heraud's Innei 
Life of Shakespeare has a passage that may not unfitly come in here : " Lady 
Macbeth is not demonstratively imaginative. She therefore neither sees 
witches, airy daggers, "nor ghosts, and ridicules the two latter as phantoms. 
And it is her provisional freedom from such imaginary terrors which makes 
her superior to her husband in the first instance. No sooner, however, is 
the crime committed than the feelings, which are latent even in apparently 
the most insensate natures, are awakened by the act ; and the fancies which 
till then had slept begin to haunt the guilty woman, and to kindle the same 
remorse after the act which her husband had felt before it. She has now 
become ' brainsickly,' and retires apart ' of sorriest fancies her companions 
making ' ; while Macbeth, restored to his normal state of consciousness, is 
busy with the murderers planning the death of Banquo. Yet, judging of 
his condition by her own, she charges him with affecting loneliness, and 
' using those thoughts which should indeed have died with them they think 
on .' " 



scene ii. MACBETH. 105 

Enter Macbeth. 

How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone, 
Of sorriest fancies your companions making; 
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died 
With them they think on? Things without 2 all remedy 
Should be without regard : what's done is done. 

Macb. We have but scotch'd 3 the snake, not kilPd it : 
She'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice 
Remains in danger of her former tooth. But let 
The frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, 
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep 
In the affliction of these terrible dreams 
That shake us nightly : 4 better be with the dead, 
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace, 
Than on the torture oft the mind to lie 
In restless ecstasy. 5 /founcan is in his grave ; 
After life's fitful fev£r he sleeps well ; / 
Treason has done his worst : nor steel, nor poison, 



2 Without, here, is beyond. Often so. In The Tempest, v. 1, the witch 
Sycorax is described as " one so strong, that could control the Moon, and 
deal in her command without her power." 

3 Scotch'd is scored or cut. So in Coriolanus, iv. 5 : " Before Corioli he 
scotch'd and notch' d him like a carbonado." 

4 What "these terrible dreams " are, is shown in Lady Macbeth's sleep- 
walking agonies. It is of her state of mind, not of his own, that Macbeth is 
here thinking. I quote again from Professor Dowden : " No witches have 
given her ' hail ' ; no airy dagger marshals her the way she is going ; nor is 
she afterwards haunted by the terrible vision of Banquo's gory head. As 
long as her will remains her own she can throw herself upon external 
facts, and maintain herself in relation with the definite, actual surroundings ; 
it is in her sleep, when the will is incapable of action, that she is persecuted 
by the past which perpetually renews itself, not in ghostly shapes, but by the 
imagined recurrence of real and terrible incidents." 

5 Ecstasy, in its general sense, is any violent perturbation of mind. 



106 MACBETH. ACT III 

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 
Can touch him further. / 

Lady M. Come on ; gentle my lord, 6 

Sleek o'er your rugged looks ; be bright and jovial 
Among your guests to-night. 

Macb. So shall I, love ; 

And so, I pray, be you : let your remembrance 
Apply 7 to Banquo ; present him eminence, both 
With eye and tongue : 8 unsafe the while, that we 
Must lave our honours in these flattering streams ; 9 
And make our faces vizards to our hearts, 
Disguising what they are. 

Lady M. You must leave this. 

Macb. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife ! 
Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleance live. 10 

6 We should say " my gentle lord." The Poet abounds in such inven 
sions. " Good my lord," " dread my lord," " dear my brother," " sweet my 
sister," and " gracious my lord," are instances. 

7 Here apply has the force of attach itself. So in Antony and Cleopatra^ 
v. 2 : " If you apply yourself to our intents, — which towards you are most 
gentle, — you shall find a benefit in this change." 

8 " Treat him with the highest consideration, or as the most eminent of 
our guests." Rather strange language, and not very happy withal; but 
such appears to be the meaning. — Is this a piece of irony? or is it meant as 
a blind, to keep his wife ignorant and innocent of the new crime on foot? 
I suspect he is trying to jest off the pangs of remorse. 

9 Flattering streams is streams of flattery. The meaning is, " The very 
fact of our being obliged thus to use the arts of hypocrisy and dissimulation 
proves that we are not safe in our seats, not secure in the tenure of our 
honours : we can retain them only by making our life, even in social inter- 
course, a studied, continuous lie." 

10 Macbeth mistranslates the recoilings and ominous whispers of con- 
science into prudential and selfish reasonings, and, after the deed is done, 
the terrors of remorse into fear from external dangers ; like delirious men 
who run away from the phantoms of their own brains, or,- raised by terror 
to rage, stab the real object that is within their reach. — COLERIDGE. 



SCENE II. MACBETH. 107 

Lady M. But in them nature's copy's not eterne. 11 

Macb. There's comfort yet ; they are assailable ; 
Then be thou jocund : ere the bat hath flown 
His cloister'd 12 flight ; ere, to black Hecate's summons, 
The shard-borne beetle 13 with his drowsy hums 
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done 
A deed of dreadful note. 

Lady M. What's to be done ? 

Macb. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, 
Till thou applaud the deed. — Come, seeling 14 night, 
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, 
And with thy bloody and invisible hand 
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond 
Which keeps me paled ! 15 — Light thickens, and the crow 
Makes wing to th' rooky wood : 16 

11 Ritson has justly observed that nature's copy alludes to copyhold tenure, 
in which the tenant holds an estate for life, having nothing but the copy of 
the rolls of his lord's court to show for it. A life-hold tenure may be well 
said to be not eternal. 

12 The bats wheeling round the dim cloisters of Queen's College, Cam- 
bridge, have frequently impressed on me the singular propriety of this 
original epithet. — Steevens. 

13 Shard or sherd is an old word for scale. So that " the shard-borne 
beetle" is the beetle borne along the air by its shards or scaly wings. — 
" Night's yawning peal " is the nocturnal signal for going to sleep. 

14 Seeling is blinding; a term in falconry. To seel the eyes of a hawk 
was to close them by sewing the eyelids together. 

15 "That great bond" is Banquo's life; the " copyhold tenure " of note 
11. — Paled is shut in or confined with palings. As Macbeth afterwards 
puts it, Banquo's life has the effect of keeping him " cabin'd, cribb'd, con- 
fined, bound-in to saucy doubts and fears." 

16 To thicken seems to have been a common expression for it grows 
dark. So in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess : " Fold your flocks up, for the 
air 'gins to thicken." — Crow and rook were used of the same bird. So that 
the meaning is, the crows are hastening to their nightly resort, the wood 
where they gather for society and sleep. 



1 08 MACBETH. 



ACT III. 



Good things of day begin to droop and drowse ; 
While night's black agents 17 to their preys do rouse. 
Thou marvelPst at my words ; but hold thee still : 
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. 
So, pr'ythee, go with me. \_Exeunt. 

Scene III. — The Same. A Park near the Palace. 
Enter three Murderers. 

1 Mur. But who did bid thee join with us? 

j Mur. Macbeth. 

2 Mur. He needs not our mistrust ; * since he delivers 

17 A covert allusion to the exploit which Macbeth's murderers are going 
about. He seems to want that his wife should suspect the new crime he has 
in hand, while he shrinks from telling her of it distinctly. And the purpose 
of his dark hints probably is, to prepare her, as far as may be, for a further 
strain upon her moral forces, which he sees to be already overstrained. 
For he fears that, if she has full knowledge beforehand of the intended mur- 
der, she may oppose it, and that, if she has no suspicion of it the shock may 
be too much for her. 

1 The meaning is, " We need not mistrust him " ; his perfect knowledge 
of what is to be done, and how, being a sufficient guaranty of his right to be 
with them. — Mr. A. P. Paton has lately made a strong argument to the 
point that the third murderer is Macbeth himself in disguise. The thing 
sounds rather startling, indeed, yet I am by no means sure but he is right. 
I can but condense a portion of his argument : That, although the banquet 
was to be at seven, Macbeth was not there till near midnight : That he has 
hardly more than entered the room before the murderer is at the door: 
That the third murderer repeats the precise directions given to the other 
two, and has perfect knowledge of the place, and the habits of visitors: 
That at the banquet Macbeth plays with the murderer at the door, as if 
exulting in the success of his disguise : That, when the Ghost rises, he asks 
the company, " Which of you have done this ? " as if to take suspicion off 
himself, and says, in effect, to the Ghost, " In yon black struggle you could 
never know me." — For the matter of this note, I am indebted, directly, to 
Mr. Furness's variorum edition of the play. Perhaps the strongest point 
against the writer's view is, that Macbeth seems surprised, and goes into a 
rapture, on being told that " Fleance is 'scaped " ; but this may not be very 



scene III. MACBETH. 109 

Our offices, and what we have to do, 
To the direction just. 

1 Mur. Then stand with us. 

The West yet glimmers with some streaks of day : 
Now spurs the lated traveller apace 2 
To gain the timely inn ; and near approaches 
The subject of our watch. 

3 Mur. Hark ! I hear horses. 

Ban. [ Within.'] Give us a light there, ho ! 

2 Mur. Then 'tis he : the rest 
That are within the note of expectation 3 
Already are i' the Court. 

1 Mur. His horses go about. 

3 Mur. Almost a mile : but he does usually, 
So all men do, from hence to th' palace-gate 
Make it their walk. 

2 Mur. A light, a light ! 

Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a Torch. 

3 Mur. 'Tis he. 
1 Mur. Stand to't. 
Ban. It will be rain to-night. 
1 Mur. Let it come down. 

[They set upon Banquo. 
Ban. O, treachery ! — Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly ! 
Thou mayst revenge. — O slave ! [Dies. Fleance escapes. 
3 Mur. Who did strike out the light ? 

1 Mur. Was't not the way? 

much; he may there be feigning. On the other hand, Macbeth's actual 
sharing in the deed of murder would go far to account for his terrible hal« 
iucination at the banquet. 

2 Lated is the same as belated. — Apace is rapidly. 

3 Whose names are in the list of those expected at the banquet, 



IIO MACBETH. ACT III 

J Mur. There's but one down ; the son is fled. 

2 Mur. We have lost best half of our affair. 

i Mur. Well, let's away, and say how much is done. 

[Exeunt, 

Scene IV. — The Same. A Room of State in the Palace. 

A Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth. 
Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants. 

Macb, You know your own degrees ; sit down : at first 
And last the hearty welcome. 

Lords. Thanks to your Majesty. 

Macb. Ourself will mingle with society, 
And play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state ; l 
But in best time we will require her welcome. 

Lady M. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends ; 
For my heart speaks they're welcome. 

First Murderer appears at the door. 

Macb. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks. — 
Both sides are even : here I'll sit i' the midst. 
Be large in mirth ; anon we'll drink a measure 
The table round. — ■ [Goes to the door.~] There's blood 
upon thy face. 

Mur. 'Tis Banquo's, then. 

Macb. 'Tis better thee without than him within. 2 
Is he dispatch'd? 

Mur. My lord, his throat is cut ; that I did for him. 

Macb. Thou art the best o' the cut-throats : yet he's 
good 

1 Her chair of state; which was a royal chair with a canopy over it.— 
Require, in the next line, is request. A frequent usage. 
a " 'Tis better on your outside than in his body." 



SCENE IV. MACBETH. II J 

That did the like for Fleance : if thou didst it, 
Thou art the nonpareil. 

Mur. Most royal sir, 

Fleance is 'scaped. 

Macb. [Aside."] Then comes my fit again : I had else 
been perfect ; 
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock ; 
As broad and general as the casing 3 air : 
But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound-in 
To saucy doubts and fears. — But Banquo's safe ? 

Mur. Ay, my good lord : safe in a ditch he bides, 
With twenty trenched gashes on his head, 
The least a death to nature. 

Macb. Thanks for that. 

[Aside. ~] There the grown serpent lies ; the worm 4 that's 

fled 
Hath nature that in time will venom breed, 
No teeth for th' present. — Get thee gone : to-morrow 
We'll hear't, ourself, again. {Exit Murderer 

Lady M. My royal lord, 

You do not give the cheer : the feast is sold . 

That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making, 
yds given with welcome : % to feed were best at home ; 
M?rom thence the sauce to meat is ceremony; 6 
Meeting were bare without it. 

3 Casing is enclosing, surrounding. — " Broad and general " is having full 
and free scope ; unclogged. 

4 Worm and serpent were used synonymously. 

5 The last clause depends on vouch'd; " that is not often declared to be 
given with welcome." — " The feast is sold," that is, made or given for 
profit, not as a frank expression of kindness and good-will. 

6 If merely to feed were all, that were best done at home : away froir 
home, words and acts of courtesy are what give relish to food. 



112 MACBETH. ACT III. 

Macb. Sweet remembrancer ! — 

Now, good digestion wait on appetite, 
And health on both ! 

Len. May't please your Highness sit. 

\The Ghost of Banquo enters, and 
sits in Macbeth 's place? 

Macb. Here had we now our country's honour roof 'd, 
Were the graced person of our Banquo present ; 
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness 
Than pity for mischance. 

Ross. His absence, sir, 

Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your Highness 
To grace us with your royal company. 

Macb. The table's full ! 

Len. Here is a place reserved, sir. 

Macb. Where? 

Len. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your 
Highness ? 

Macb. Which of you have done this ? 

Lords. What, my good lord ? 

. Macb. /Thou canst not say I did it : never shake 
Thy gory locks at me. / 

Ross. Gentlemen, rise ; his Highness is not well. 

Lady M. Sit, worthy friends : my lord is often thus, 
And hath been from his youth : pray you, keep seat ; 
The fit is momentary ; upon a thought 
He will again be well : if much you note him, 
^ou shall 8 offend him and extend his passion ; 

7 On the subject of the Ghost in this scene, see Introduction, page 43. 

8 In Shakespeare's time, the auxiliaries shall and will, like could, should, 
and would, were often used indiscriminately. The same usage has occurred 
before in this play ; as, " memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a 
fume " ; and, " If you shall cleave to my consent." 



SCENE IV. MACBETH. 



113 



Feed, and regard him not. — Are you a man ? 

Macb. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that 
Which might appal the Devil. 

Lady M. \_Aside to Macbeth.] O proper stuff ! 
This is the very painting of your fear : 
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, 
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts, 
Impostors to true fear, 9 would well become 
A woman's story at a Winter's fire, 
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself ! 
Why do you make such faces ? When all's done, 
You look but on a stool. 

Macb. Pr'ythee, see there ! behold ! look ! lo ! how say 
you? — 
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too. — 
If charnel-houses and our graves must send 
Those that we bury back, our monuments 
Shall be the maws of kites. 10 ) [Ghost vanishes. 

Lady M. What, quite unmann'd in folly ? 

Macb. If I stand here, I saw him. 

Lady M. Fie, for shame ! 

Macb. Blood hath been shed ere now : i' the olden time, 
Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal, 11 

9 These self-generated fears are impostors compared to true fear, — that 
fear which springs from real danger. This use of to for compared to, or in 
comparison with, is very common in the old writers. 

10 The same thought occurs in The Faerie Queene, ii. 8, 16 : " But be 
entombed in the raven or the kite." Also in Fairfax's Tasso, xii. 79 : " Let 
that self monster me in pieces rend, and deep entomb me in his hollow 
chest." And an ancient author calls vultures " living sepulchres." 

11 The meaning is, ere humane statute made the commonwealth gentle 
by purging and cleansing it from the wrongs and pollutions of barbarism. 
Another prolepsis. See page 70, note 1. — The sense of gentle, here, is 
civil, sociable, amenable to order and law. 



114 MACBETH. ACT III. 

Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd 
Too terrible for the ear. The time has been, 
That when the brains were out the man would die, 
And there an end ; but now they rise again, 
With twenty mortal gashes on their crowns, 
And push us from our stools : this is more strange 
Than such a murder is. 

Lady M. My worthy lord, 

Your noble friends do lack you. 

Macb. I do forget : — 

Do not muse 12 at me, my most worthy friends ; 
I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing 
To those that know me. Come, love and health to all ; 
Then I'll sit down. — Give me some wine, fill full. — 
I drink to th' general joy of the whole table, 
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss : 
Would he were here ! to all and him we thirst, 
And all to all. 13 

Lords. Our duties, and the pledge. 

Re-enter the Ghost. 14 

Macb. Avaunt ! and quit my sight ! let the earth hide thee \ 
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold ; 

12 Shakespeare uses to muse for to wonder, to be amazed. 

13 I am not clear as to the precise meaning of this : probably it is, " We 
crave to drink to the health of all, and of him, and to have every one pres- 
ent join in the pledge to all." 

14 Much question has been made, whether there be not two several 
ghosts in this scene ; some maintaining that Duncan's enters here, and 
Banquo's before ; others, that Banquo's enters here, and Duncan's before. 
The question is best disposed of by referring to Dr. Forman, who, as he 
speaks of Banquo's ghost, would doubtless have spoken of Duncan's, had 
there been any such : " The night, being at supper with his noblemen, 
whom he had bid to a feast, (to the which also Banquo should have come,) 
he began to speak of noble Banquo, and to wish that he were there. And as 



MACBETH. 115 

Thou hast no speculation 15 in those eyes 
Which thou dost glare with. 

Lady M. Think of this, good peers, 

But as a thing of custom : 'tis no other ; 
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. 

Macb. What man dare, I dare : 
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, 
The arm'd 16 rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger ; 
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves 
Shall never tremble : or be alive again, 
And dare me to the desert with thy sword ; 
If trembling I inhabit then, 17 protest me 
The baby of a girl. 18 Hence, horrible shadow ! 
Unreal mockery, hence ! [Ghost vanishes, 

Why, so : being gone, 
I am a man again. — Pray you, sit still. 

Lady M. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good 
meeting, 

he thus did, standing up to drink a carouse to him, the ghost of Banquo came 
and sat down in his chair behind him. And he, turning about to sit down 
again, saw the ghost of Banquo, which fronted him, so that he fell in a great 
passion of fear and fury." 

15 Speculation in its proper Latin sense of vision or seeing. 

16 Arm'd for armoured, referring to the thickness and hardness of the 
animal's hide. 

17 This passage is explained by Home Tooke : " Dare me to the desert 
with thy sword ; if then I do not meet thee there ; if trembling I stay in my 
castle, or any habitation; if I then hide my head, or dwell in any place 
through fear, protest me the baby of a girl." Milton uses inhabit in a simi- 
lar sense, Paradise Lost, vii. : " Meanwhile inhabit lax, ye Powers of Heav- 
en." 

18 " The baby of a girl," some say, is a girl's baby ; that is, a doll. Others 
think it means the child of an immature mother. I suspect it means sim- 
ply a babyish girl. We have many like phrases ; as " a wonder of a man " ; 
that is, a wonderful man. This explanation was proposed to me by Pro« 
fessor Howison of Boston. 



Il6 MACBETH. ACT III. 

With most admired 19 disorder. 

Macb. Can such things be, 

And overcome us like a Summer's cloud, 
Without our special wonder ? 20 You make me strange 
Even to the disposition that I owe, 21 
When now I think you can behold such sights, 
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, 
When mine are blanch'd with fear. 

Ross. What sights, my lord ? 

Lady M. I pray you, speak not ; he grows worse and 
worse ; 
(Question enrages him. At once, good night : 
/Stand not upon the order of your going, 22 
But go at once. / 

Len. Good night ; and better health 

Attend his Majesty ! 

Lady M. A kind good night to all ! 

[Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. 

Macb. It will have blood ; they say blood will have blood : 
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak ; 
Augurs, and understood relations, 23 have 
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth 
The secret'st man of blood. What is the night ? 

19 Admired for admirable, and in the Latin sense of wonde?ful. 

20 Pass over us without our wonder, as a casual Summer's cloud passes 
unregarded. 

21 " I have hitherto supposed myself a man of firm courage ; but that you 
should now be perfectly unmoved when I am so shaken with terror, makes 
me doubtful of my own disposition. I seem a stranger to myself, and can- 
not tell what I am made of." 

22 Stay not to go out according to your rank or order of precedence. 

23 A passage very obscure to general readers, but probably intelligible 
enough to those experienced in the course of criminal trials ; where two or 
three little facts or items of testimony may be of no significance taken sin- 



SCENE IV. MACBETH. 117 

Lady M. Almost at odds with morning, which is which. 

Macb. How say'st thou, 24 that Macduff denies his person 
At our great bidding ? 

Lady M. Did you send to him, sir ? 

Macb. I hear it by the way, but I will send : 
There is not one of them but in his house 
I keep a servant fee'd. 25 I will to-morrow — 
Ay, and betimes I will — to th' Weird Sisters : 
More shall they speak ; for now I'm bent to know, 
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good 
All causes shall give way : / a?n in blood 
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, 
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. 
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand ; 
Which must be acted ere they may be scanned. 

Lady M.f You lack the season 26 of all natures, sleep. / 

Macb. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse 

gly or by themselves ; yet, when they are put together and their relations 
understood, they may be enough to convict or acquit the accused. And 
even so trifling a matter as the note or talk of a parrot, interpreted in the 
light of such relations, may prove decisive of the case. Magot-pie or mag- 
pie and chough are old words for parrot or paraquito. 

24 «• What do you say of this fact or circumstance ? — By " our great bid- 
ding" is meant, not any particular request or order to Macduff, but the 
general invitation implied in the very purpose of the banquet. Macbeth 
has heard of his refusal only " by the way," that is, incidentally, or through 
a " fee'd servant." Such is the substance of Elwin's explanation as given in 
Mr. Furness's Variorum. — See, below, scene vi., note 5. 

25 Meaning that he has paid spies lurking and prowling about in the 
families of all the noblemen, and using the advantage of their place as ser- 
vants to get information for him. The meanest and hatefullest practice of 
a jealous tyrant ! 

26 Johnson explains this, " You want sleep, which seasons or gives the rel- 
ish to all natures." So in Cymbeline, i. 6 : " Blest be those, how mean 
soe'er, that have their honest wills ; which seasons comfort." 



Il8 MACBETH. ACT IIL 

Is the initiate fear^ 1 that wants hard use : 

We're yet but young in deed, [Exeunt, 

Scene V. — A Heath, Thunder. 

Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate. 

/ Witch. Why, how now, Hecate ! you look angerly. 
Hec. Have I not reason, beldams as you are, 

Saucy and overbold ? How did you dare 

To trade and traffic with Macbeth 

In riddles and affairs of death ; 

And I, the mistress of your charms, 

The close 1 contriver of all harms, 

Was never calPd to bear my part, 

Or show the glory of our art ? 

And, which is worse, all you have done 

Hath been but for a wayward son, 

Spiteful and wrathful ; who, as others do, 

Loves for his own ends, not for you. 

But make amends now : get you gone, 

And at the pit of Acheron 

Meet me i' the morning : thither he 

Will come to know his destiny : 

Your vessels and your spells provide, 

Your charms, and every thing beside. 

I am for th J air ; this night I'll spend 

Unto a dismal and a fatal end : 

Great business must be wrought ere noon : 

Upon the corner of the Moon 

27 The initiate fear is the fear that attends the first stages of guilt. — The 
and in this speech is redundant. The Poet continually u«es abuse for delu- 
sion or deception. So, here, self-abuse is self-delusion. Macbeth now knows 
that the Banquo he has just seen was but a Banquo of the mind. 

1 Close, here, is secret. Shakespeare often uses it so. 






scene vi. MACBETH. 119 

There hangs a vapourous drop profound ; 2 
I'll catch it ere it come to ground : 
And that, distilPd by magic sleights, 3 
Shall raise such artificial sprites, 
As, by the strength of their illusion, 
Shall draw him on to his confusion : 
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear 
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear ; 
And you all know security 4 
Is mortals' chiefest enemy. 

[Music and a Song within : Come away, come away, 6°r. 5 

Hark ! I am call'd ; my little spirit, see, 
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. \_Exit 

1 Witch. Come, let's make haste ; she'll soon be back 
again. [Exeunt. 

Scene VI. — Forres. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter Lennox and another Lord. 

Len. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts, 
Which can interpret further : only I say 
Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan 
Was pitied of Macbeth : marry, 1 he was dead : 

2 Profound here signifies having deep or secret qualities. The vapourous 
drop seems to have been the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being 
a foam which the Moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other 
objects, when strongly solicited by enchantments. 

3 Sleights is arts, or subtle practices; as in the common phrase, "sleight 
of hand." 

4 Security in the Latin sense of over-confidence or presumption. Both the 
noun and the adjective are often used thus. 

5 For the rest of the song used here, see Critical Notes. 

1 Marry was much used as a general intensive, and has the force of it* 
deed, forsooth, or to be sure. See Hamlet, page 72, note 24. 



120 MACBETH. ACT in 

And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late ; 

Whom, you may say, if 't please you, Fleance kill'd, 

For Fleance fled : men must not walk too late. 

Who can now want the thought, 2 how monstrous 

It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain 

To kill their gracious father? damned fact ! 

How it did grieve Macbeth ! did he not straight, 

In pious rage, the two delinquents tear, 

That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep ? 

Was not that nobly done ? Ay, and wisely too ; 

For 'twould have anger' d any heart alive 

To hear the men deny't. So that, I say, 

He has borne all things well : and I do think 

That, had he Duncan's sons under his key, — 

As, an't please Heaven, he shall not, — they should find 

What 'twere to kill a father ; so should Fleance. 

But, peace ! for from broad 3 words, and 'cause he fail'd 

His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear 

Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell 

Where he bestows himself? 

Lord. The son of Duncan, 

From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth, 
Lives in the English Court ; and is received 
Of the most pious Edward with such grace, 
That the malevolence of fortune nothing 
Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff 
Is gone to pray the holy King, upon his aid 
To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward ; 
That by the help of these, with Him above 

2 An old form of speech, meaning " be without the thought," or lack it 
We should say, " Who can help thinking?" 

3 Broad, here, is plain , outright, free-spoken. 



SCENE VI. MACBETH. 121 

To ratify the work, we may again 
Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights ; 
Keep from our feasts and banquets bloody knives ; 
Do faithful homage and receive free honours ; 
All which we pine for now : and this report 
Hath so exasperate 4 the King, that he 
Prepares for some attempt of war. 

Len. Sent he to Macduff? 

Lord. He did : and with an absolute Sir, not I, 
The cloudy messenger turns me his back, 
And hums, as who should say, 5 You'll rue the tune 
That clogs me with this answer. 

Len. And that well might 

Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance 
His wisdom can provide. Some holy Angel 
Fly to the Court of England, and unfold 
His message ere he come ; that a swift blessing 
May soon return to this our suffering country 
Under a hand accursed ! 6 

Lord. I '11 send my prayers with him ! 

\Exeunt. 

4 Exasperate for exasperated. The Poet has many such shortened pre- 
terites ; as consecrate, contaminate, dedicate. 

5 " As who should say " is equivalent to as if he were saying. A frequent 
usage. — Cloudy is angry , frowning. — In "turns me his back," me is redun- 
dant. Often so. — It appears, at the close of scene 4, that Macbeth did not 
give Macduff a special and direct invitation to the banquet ; but his attend- 
ance was expected as a matter of course ; and his failure to attend made 
him an object of distrust and suspicion to the tyrant. We are to suppose 
that Macbeth learned, from the paid spy and informer whom he kept in 
Macduff's house, that the latter had declared he would not go to the feast. 
So that the messenger here spoken of was probably not sent to invite Mac- 
duff, but to call him to account for his non-attendance. See page 117, notes 
24 and 25. 

6 The order is, " our country suffering under a hand accursed." 



122 MACBETH. ACT IV. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — A Cavern. In the Middle, a Boiling Cauldron 
Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 

i Witch. Thrice the brinded x cat hath mew'd. 

2 Witch. Thrice and once 2 the hedge-pig whined. 

3 Witch. Harpy cries : — 'tis time, 'tis time. 3 
i Witch. Round about the cauldron go ; 

In the poison'd entrails throw. — 

Toad, that under the cold stone 

Days and nights hast thirty-one 

Swelter' d venom sleeping got, 

Boil thou first i' the charmed pot. 
All. ^Double, double toil and trouble ; 

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble./ 
2 Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake, 

In the cauldron boil and bake ; 

Eye of newt and toe of frog, 

Wool of bat and tongue of dog, 

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 4 

Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, — 

1 Brinded is but an old form of brindled. The colour, as I used to hear 
it applied to cats and cows, was a dark brown streaked with black. 

2 Thrice and once is put for four, because, on such occasions, the calling 
of even numbers was thought unlucky. 

3 Harpy's cry is the signal, showing that it is time to begin their work. 
Harpy is of course a familiar. See page 48, note 2. 

4 Fork is put for forked tongue. The adder's tongue was thought to have 
a poisonous sting. — Blind-worm is the slowworm. Called " eyeless venom'd 
worm " in Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 



SCENE i. MACBETH. 123 

For a charm of powerful trouble, 

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
All. Double, double toil and trouble ; 

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 
3 Witch. Scale of dragon ; tooth of wolf; 

Witch's mummy ; 5 maw and gulf 

Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark ; 6 

Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark ; 7 

Liver of blaspheming Jew ; 

Gall of goat ; and slips of yew 

Sliver'd in the Moon's eclipse ; 8 

Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips ; 

Finger of birth-strangled babe 

Ditch-deliver'd by a drab, — 

Make the gruel thick and slab : 

Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, 9 

For the ingredients of our cauldron. 

5 Probably meaning the mummy of an old Egyptian witch embalmed. 
Honest mummy was much used as medicine ; and a witch's of course 
had evil magic in it. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Hydriotaphia, has the fol- 
lowing : " The Egyptian mummy, which Cambyses or time hath spared, av- 
arice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim cures 
wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." 

6 Ravin d for ravening or ravenous ; the passive form with the active 
sense. — Maw is stomach. — Gulf is gullet or throat ; that which swallows 
or gulps down any thing. 

7 Any poisonous root was thought to become more poisonous if dug on 
a dark night. See Hamlet, page 144, note 39. 

8 A lunar eclipse was held to be fraught with evil magic of the highest 
intensity. So in Paradise Lost, i. 597 : " The Moon in dim eclipse disastrous 
twilight sheds on half the nations." 

9 Chaudron is entrails. — Slab is glutinous or slabby ; what, in making 
soft soap, used to be called ropy. — " The Weird Sisters of our dramatist," 
says Professor Dowden, " may take their place beside the terrible old wo- 
men of Michael Angelo, who spin the destinies of man. Shakespeare is no 
more afraid than Michael Angelo of being vulgar. And thus he fearlessly 



1 24 MACBETH. ACT IV 

ill. Double, double toil and trouble ; 

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 
2 Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood, 
Then the charm is firm and good. 

Enter Hecate. 

Hec. O, well done / I commend your pains ; 
And every one shall share V the gains. 
And now about the cauldron sing, 
Like elves and fairies in a ring, 
Enchanting all that you put in. 

[Music and a Song : Black spirits, &*c. 1Q 

[Exit Hecate. 
2 Witch. By the pricking of my thumbs, 
Something wicked this way comes : — 
Open, locks, whoever knocks. 
Enter Macbeth. 

Macb. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags ! 
What is't you do ? 

All. A deed without a name. 

Macb. I c6njure you, by that which you profess, — 

showed us his Weird Sisters, ' the goddesses of destiny,' brewing infernal 
charms in their wicked cauldron. We cannot quite dispense in this life 
with ritualism, and the ritualism of evil is foul and ugly: the hell-broth 
which the witches are cooking bubbles up with no refined, spiritual poison ; 
the quintessence of mischief is brewed out of foul things which can be enum- 
erated ; thick and slab the gruel must be made. Yet these Weird Sisters 
remain terrible and sublime. They tingle in every fibre with evil energy, 
as the tempest does with the electric current ; their malignity is inexhausti- 
ble ; they are wells of sin springing up unto everlasting death ; they have 
their raptures and ecstasies in crime ; they snatch with delight at the relics 
of impiety and foul disease ; they are the awful inspirers of murder, insan- 
ity, suicide." 

10 I here print just as it is in the original. The song commonly used oa 
the stage is from The Witch of Middleton, See Critical Notes. 






SCENE I. MACBETH. 125 

Howe'er you come to know it, — answer me : 

Though you untie the winds, and let them fight 

Against the churches ; though the yesty n waves 

Confound and swallow navigation up ; 

Though bladed corn be lodged, 12 and trees blown down ; 

Though castles topple on their warders' heads ; 

Though palaces and pyramids do slope 

Their heads to their foundations ; though the treasure 

Of Nature's germens 13 tumble all together, 

Even till destruction sicken, - — answer me 

To what I ask you. 

1 Witch. Speak. 

2 Witch. Demand. 

3 Witch. We'll answer. 

1 Witch. Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths, 
Or from our masters. 

Macb. Call 'em, let me see 'em. 

I Witch. Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten 

Her nine farrow ; 14 grease that's sweaten 
From the murderer's gibbet throw 
Into the flame. 
All. Come, high or low ; 

Thyself and office deftly 15 show ! 

Thunder. An Apparition of an armed Head rises , 16 

II Yesty is foaming, frothy ; like yeast. 

12 "Bladed corn " is corn in the blade. — Lodged is laid. 

13 Germens are the seeds, the springs or principles of germination, wheth- 
er in plants or animals. — " Till destruction sicken " probably means till 
destruction grows sick of destroying. 

14 Nine farrow is a litter of nine pigs. Farrow is from the Anglo-Saxon 
fearh, which means give birth to pigs. 

15 Deftly is adroitly, dexterously. 

16 The armed head represents symbolically Macbeth's head cut off and 



126 MACBETH. ACT IV. 

Macb. Tell me, thou unknown power, — 
i Witch. He knows thy thought : 

Hear his speech, but say thou nought. 17 

1 App. Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth ! beware Macduff; 
Beware the Thane of Fife. — Dismiss me : enough. 18 

[Descends. 

Macb. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks ; 
Thou'st harp'd my fear aright : but one word more, — 

i Witch. He will not be commanded : here's another, 
More potent than the first. 

Thunder. An Apparition of a bloody Child rises. 

2 App. Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth ! — 
Macb. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee. 19 
2 App. — Be bloody, bold, and resolute ; laugh to scorn 

The power of man, for none of woman born 

Shall harm Macbeth. [Descends 

Macb. Then live, Macduff : what need I fear of thee ? 
But yet I'll make assurance double-sure, 
And take a bond of fate : 20 thou shalt not live ; 
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, 
And sleep in spite of thunder. — 

brought to Malcolm by Macduff. The bloody child is Macduff, untimely 
ripped from his mother's womb. The child, with a crown on his head and 
a bough in his hand, is the royal Malcolm, who ordered his soldiers to hew 
them down a bough, and bear it before them to Dunsinane. — UPTON. 

17 Silence was necessary during all incantations. So in The Tempest : 
" Be mute, or else our spell is marr'd." 

18 Spirits thus evoked were supposed impatient of being questioned. 

19 The meaning probably is, " Had I more ears than I have, I would lis- 
ten with them all." The stress is on three, not on ears. So the phrase still 
in use : " I listened with all the ears I had." 

20 That is, " I will bind fate itself to my cause." 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 127 

Thunder. An Apparition of a Child crowned, with a Tree 
in his Hand, rises. 

What is this, 
That rises like the issue of a king, 
And wears upon his baby brow the round 
And top of sovereignty ? 21 

All. Listen, but speak not to't. 

3 App. Be lion-mettled, proud ; and take no care 
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are : 
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until 
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane 22 hill 
Shall come against him. [Descends. 

Macb. That will never be : 

Who can impress the forest ? 23 bid the tree 
Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet b o dements ! good! 
Rebellion's head rise never, till the wood 
Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth 
Shall live the lease of Nature, pay his breath 
To time and mortal custom. 124 Yet my heart 
Throbs to know one thing : tell me, — if your art 
Can tell so much, — shall Banquo's issue ever 
Reign in this kingdom ? 

All. Seek to know no more. 

Macb. I will be satisfied : deny me this, 

21 The round is that part of a crown which encircles the head : the top is 
the ornament which rises above it, and is symbolical of sovereign power 
and honour. 

22 The present accent of Dunsinane is right. In every other instance the 
accent is misplaced. 

23 " Who can press the forest into his service ? " 

24 That is, shall live the full time allotted to man, and then die a natural 
death. 



128 MACBETH. 



ACT IV. 



And an eternal curse fall on you ! Let me know — 
Why sinks that cauldron ? and what noise is this ? 

\Hautboys. 
i Witch. Show ! 

2 Witch. Show ! 

3 Witch. Show ! 

All. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart ; 
Come like shadows, so depart ! 

Eight Kings appear in succession ; the last with a glass in 
his hand ; Banquo's Ghost following. 

Macb. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo ; down ! 
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. — And thy air, 25 
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first : — 
A third is like the former. — Filthy hags ! 
Why do you show me this ? — A fourth ! — Start, eyes ! 
What, will the line stretch out to th' crack of doom ? 
Another yet ! — A seventh ! — I'll see no more : 
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass 26 
Which shows me many more ; and some I see 

25 Ai r i s here put for look or appearance. So in The Winter's Tale, v. I : 
" Your father's image is so hit in you, his very air, that I should call you 
brother." 

26 The notion of a magic glass or charmed mirror, wherein any one 
might see whatsoever of the distant or the future pertained to himself, 
seems to have been a part of the old Druidical mythology. There is an 
allusion to it in Measure for Measure, ii. 2 : " And, like a prophet, looks in a 
glass that shows what future evils," &c. Such was the " brod mirrour of 
glas " which " the king of Arabie and of Inde " sent to Cambuscan, as related 
in The Squieres Tale of Chaucer. But the most wonderful glass of this 
kind was that described in The Faerie Queene, iii. 2, which 

The great Magitien Merlin had deviz'd 

By his deepe science and hell-dreaded might. 



scene i. MACBETH. 1 29 

That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry : 27 
Horrible sight ! — Nay, now I see 'tis true ; 
For the blood-bolter'd 28 Banquo smiles upon me, 
And points at them for his. — What, is this so ? 
1 Witch. Ay, sir, all this is so. But why 

Stands Macbeth thus amazedly ? — 

Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites, 

And show the best of our delights : 

Pll charm the air to give a sound, 

While you perform your antic round ; 

That this great King may kindly say 

Our duties did his welcome pay. 

[Music. The Witches dance, and then vanish. 
Macb. Where are they ? Gone ? — Let this pernicious hour 
Stand aye accursed in the calendar ! 29 — 
Come in, without there ! 

Enter Lennox. 

Len. What's your Grace's will? 

Macb. Saw you the Weird Sisters ? 

Len. No, my lord. 

27 The two balls or globes probably symbolized the two independent 
crowns of England and Scotland ; the three sceptres, the kingdoms of Eng- 
land, Scotland, and Ireland. Scott, in Quentin Durward, when Charles the 
Bold has Louis of France in his power, makes Comines say to the King, 
that " it is his (the Duke's) purpose to close his ducal coronet with an im- 
perial arch, and surmount it with a globe, in emblem that his dominions are 
independent!' 

28 In Warwickshire, when a horse, sheep, or other animal perspires 
much, and any of the hair or wool becomes matted into tufts with grime 
and sweat, he is said to be boltered; and whenever the blood issues out and 
coagulates, forming the locks into hard clotted bunches, the beast is said to 
be blood-boltered. 

29 Alluding to the old custom of marking down lucky and unlucky days 
in the almanacs. 



I30 MACBETH. ACT IV. 

Macb. Came they not by you ? 

Len. No indeed, my lord. 

Macb. Infected be the air whereon they ride ; 
And damn'd all those that trust them ! I did hear 
The galloping of horse 7 : who was't came by ? 

Len. Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word 
Macduff is fled to England. 

Macb. Fled to England ! 

Len. Ay, my good lord. 

Macb. [Aside. ~] Time, thou anticipatest 30 my dread exploits t 
The nighty purpose never is o'ertook 
Unless the deed go with it : from this moment 
The very firstlings of my heart shall be 
The firstlings of my hand. And even now, 
To crown my thoughts with acts, be't thought and done : 
The castle of Macduff I will surprise ; 
Seize upon Fife ; give to the edge o' the sword 
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls 
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool ; 
This deed I 1 II do before this purpose cool: 
But no more sights ! 31 — Where are these gentlemen ? 
Come, bring me where they are. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — Fife. A Room in Macduff's Castle. 

Enter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross. 

L. Macd. What had he done, to make him fly the land ? 
Ross. You must have patience, madam. 

80 The Poet often has prevent in the sense of anticipate ; here he has an- 
ticipate in the sense of prevent. 

31 Macbeth does not at all relish the vision of Banquo, &c., shown him 
in the cavern : it vexes and disturbs him greatly. This is evidently what he 
refers to here. 



SCENE ii. MACBETH. 131 

L. Macd. He had none ; 

His flight was madness : when our actions do not, 
Our fears do make us traitors. 1 

Ross. You know not 

Whether it was his wisdom or his fear. 

L. Macd. Wisdom ! to leave his wife, to leave his babes. 
His mansion and his titles, in a place 
From whence himself does fly ! He loves us not ; 
He wants the natural touch : 2 for the poor wren, 
The most diminutive of birds, will fight, 
Her young ones in her nest, 3 against the owl. 
All is the fear, and nothing is the love ; 
As little is the wisdom, where the flight 
So runs against all reason. 

Ross. My dearest coz, 

I pray you, school yourself : but, for your husband, 4 
He's noble, wise, judicious, and best knows 
The fits o' the season. 5 I dare not speak much further : 
But cruel are the times, when we are traitors, 
And do not know't ourselves ; when we hold rumour 
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, 6 
But float upon a wild and violent sea 

1 Make in the sense of make out or prove. " When our actions do not 
convict us of being traitors, our fears do." The Lady is apprehensive that 
her husband's flight will be construed as proceeding from guilty fear. 

2 The sense or sensibility of nature or natural affection. The Poet has 
u inly touch of love " in a like sense. 

3 That is, " her young ones being in her nest." Ablative absolute. 

4 As to, or as regards, your husband. For is often used thus. 

5 The exigencies or dangers of the time. Fits for turns or changes. 

6 " Fear makes us credit rumour, yet we know not what to fear, because 
ignorant when we offend." A condition wherein men believe the more, 
because they fear, and fear the more, because they cannot foresee the dan- 
ger. 



132 MACBETH. ACT IV, 

Each way it moves. I take my leave of you ; 
Shall not be long but I'll be here again. 
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward 
To what they were before. 7 — My pretty cousin, 
Blessing upon you ! 

L. Macd. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless. 

Ross. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer, 
It would be my disgrace and your discomfort : 8 
I take my leave at once. \Exit 

L. Macd. Sirrah, 9 your father's dead : 

And what will you do now ? How will you live ? 

Son. As birds do, mother. 

L. Macd. What, with worms and flies ? 

Son. With what I get, I mean ; and so do they. 

L. Macd. Poor bird ! thou'dst never fear the net nor 
lime, 
The pitfall nor the gin. 10 

Son. Why should I, mother ? Poor birds they are not set 
for. 11 
My father is not dead, for all your saying. 

L. Macd. Yes, he is dead : how wilt thou do for a father ? 

Son. Nay, how will you do for a husband ? 

L. Macd. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. 

Son. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again. 

7 Meaning, apparently, that, the worse a disease becomes, the sooner 
there will be either death or recovery. The very excess of an evil often 
starts a reaction, and thence a return to a better state. 

8 Meaning that he would fall into the unmanly act of weeping. 

9 Sirrah is here used playfully ; perhaps as a note of motherly pride. 

10 Gin is trap or snare. — Lime for birdlime, the name of an old device 
for ensnaring birds. See Hamlet, page 154, note 8. 

11 The bright, dear boy's thought seems to be, that traps are not set for 
the poor, but for the rich ; nor for children, like himself, but for important, 
full-grown men. 



SCENE II. MACBETH. 133 

Z. Macd. Thou speak'st with all thy wit ; and yet, i' faith, 
With wit enough for thee. 

Son. Was my father a traitor, mother ? 

Z. Macd. Ay, that he was. 

Son. What is a traitor? 

Z. Macd. Why, one that swears and lies. 

Son. And be all traitors that do so ? 

Z. Macd. Every one that does so is a traitor, and must 
be hang'd. 

Son. And must they all be hang'd that swear and lie ? 

Z. Macd. Every one. 

Son. Who must hang them ? 

Z. Macd. Why, the honest men. 

Son. Then the liars and swearers are fools ; for there are 
liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men, and hang 
up them. 

Z. Macd. Now, God help thee, poor monkey ! But how 
wilt thou do for a father ? 

Son. If he were dead, you'd weep for him : if you would 
not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new 
father. 

Z. Macd. Poor prattler, how thou talk'st ! 

Enter a Messenger. 
Mess. Bless you, fair dame ! 12 I am not to you known, 
Though in your state of honour I am perfect. 13 
I doubt 14 some danger does approach you nearly : 

12 This messenger was one of the murderers employed by Macbeth to 
exterminate Macduff's family; but who, from emotions of remorse and 
pity, had outstripped his companions, to give timely warning of their ap- 
proach. — Heath. 

13 That is, " perfectly acquainted with your honourable rank and charac- 
ter." The Poet has perfect repeatedly so. 

14 Here, as often, doubt is used for fear or suspect. 



134 MACBETH. ACT IV. 

If you will take a homely man's advice, 

Be not found here ; hence, with your little ones. 

To fright you thus, 15 methinks I am too savage ; 

To do worse to you were fell cruelty, 

Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you ! 

I dare abide no longer. \_Exit. 

L. Macd. Wherefore should I fly? 

I've done no harm. But I remember now 
I'm in this earthly world ; where to do harm 
Is often laudable ; to do good, sometime 
Accounted dangerous folly : why then, alas, 
Do I put up that womanly defence, 
To say I've done no harm? — 

Enter Murderers. 

What are these faces ? 
i Mur. Where is your husband ? 
L. Macd. I hope, in no place so unsanctified 
Where such as thou mayst find him. 

i Mur. He's a traitor. 

Son. Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd 16 villain ! 
i Mur. \_Stabbing him.~\ What, you egg ! 

Young fry of treachery ! 

Son. He has kill'd me, mother : 

Run away, I pray you ! 17 \_Dies. 

\Exit Lady Macduff, crying Murder ! 
and pursued by the Murderers. 

15 " To fright you " for in frightening you. See page 84, note 20. 

16 Shag-hair'd was a common term of abuse. In Lodge's Incarnate 
Devils of this Age, 1596, we have " shag-heard slave." 

17 " This scene," says Coleridge, " dreadful as it is, is still a relief, be- 
cause a variety, because domestic, and therefore soothing, as associated 
with the only real pleasures of life. The conversation between Lady Mac- 



scene III. MACBETH. 135 

Scene III. — England. Before the King's Palace. 
Enter Malcolm and Macduff. 

Mai. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there 
Weep our sad bosoms empty. 

Macd. Let us rather 

Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men 
Bestride our down-falPn birthdom. 1 Each new morn 
New widows howl ; new orphans cry ; new sorrows 
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds 
As if it felt with Scotland, and yelPd out 
Like syllable of dolour. 

Mai What I believe, I'll wail ; 

What know, believe ; and what I can redress, 
As I shall find the time to friend, I will. 
What you have spoke, it may be so perchance. 
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, 
Was once thought honest : you have loved him well ; 
He hath not touch'd you yet. I'm young ; but something 
You may deserve of him through me ; and wisdom 
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb 
T' appease an angry god. 2 

duff and her child heightens the pathos, and is preparatory for the deep 
tragedy of their assassination. Shakespeare's fondness for children is 
everywhere shown : — in Prince Arthur in King John ; in the sweet scene 
in The Winter's Tale between Hermione and her son ; nay, even in honest 
Evans' examination of Mrs. Page's schoolboy." 

1 Birthdom, for the place of our birth, our native land. To bestride one 
that was down in battle was a special bravery of friendship. — Good here 
means brave. Often so used. 

2 " You may purchase or secure his favour by sacrificing me to his mal- 
ice ; and to do so would be an act of worldly wisdom on your part, as I 
have no power to punish you for it." 



136 MACBETH. ACT IV. 

Macd. I am not treacherous. 

Mai. But Macbeth is. 

A good and virtuous nature may recoil 
In an imperial charge. 3 But I shall crave your pardon ; 
That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose : 4 
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell : 
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, 
Yet grace must still look so. 5 

Macd. I've lost my hopes. 

Mai. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts. 6 
Why in that rawness left you wife and child, 
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love, 
Without leave-taking? I pray you, 
Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, 
But mine own safeties : you may be rightly just, 
Whatever I shall think. 

Macd. Bleed, bleed, poor country ! — 

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, 
For goodness dare not check thee ! wear thou thy wrongs, 
Thy title is affeer'd ! 7 -/Fare thee well, lord : 

3 May recede or fall away from goodness and virtue under the tempta- 
tions of a man so powerful to resent or to reward. 

4 Transpose for interpret or translate. Not so elsewhere, I think. 

5 That is, though all bad things should counterfeit the looks of good- 
ness, yet goodness must still wear its own looks. Would for should. 

6 Macduff claims to have fled his home to avoid the tyrant's blow ; yet 
he has left his wife and children in the tyrant's power: this makes the 
Prince distrust his purpose, and suspect him of being a secret agent of 
Macbeth. And so, when he says, " I've lost my hopes," the Prince replies, 
" Perhaps the cause which has destroyed your hopes is the very same that 
leads me to distrust you ; that is, perhaps you have hoped to betray me ; 
which is just what I fear." 

7 Ritson, a lawyer, explains this rightly, no doubt : " To affeer is to as- 
sess, or reduce to certainty. All amerciaments are, by Magna Chatta, to 
be affeered by lawful men, sworn and impartial. This is the ordinary prac- 



SCENE III. 



MACBETH. 13*3 



I would not be the villain that thou think'st 
For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp. 
And the rich East to boot. 

Mai. Be not offended : 

I speak not as in absolute fear of you. 
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke ; 
It weeps, it bleeds ; and each new day a gash 
Is added to her wounds : I think, withal, 
There would be hands uplifted in my right ; 
And here, from gracious England, 8 have I offer 
Of goodly thousands : but, for all this, 
When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head, 
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country 
Shall have more vices than it had before ; 
More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever, 
By him that shall succeed. 

Macd. What should he be ? 

Mai. It is myself I mean ; in whom I know 
All the particulars of vice so grafted 
That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth 
Will seem as pure as snow ; and the poor State 
Esteem him as a lamb, being compared 
With my confineless 9 harms. 

Macd. Not in the legions 

Of horrid Hell can come a devil more damn'd 
In evils to top 10 Macbeth. 

tice of a Court Leet, with which Shakespeare seems to have been intimately 
acquainted." — In "wear thou thy wrongs," the meaning probably is, 
wrongs as opposed to rights ; or, perhaps, place and honours gained by 
wrong. 

8 Edward the Confessor, who was then King of England. 

9 Confineless for boundless, or numberless. Not so elsewhere. 

1° To top is, in old English, to surpass. See Hamlet, page no, note 49. 



138 MACBETH. ACT IV 

Mai. I grant him bloody, 

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, 
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin 
That has a name : but there's no bottom, none, 
In my voluptuousness ; and my desire 
All continent 11 impediments would o'erbear 
That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth 
Than such an one to reign. 

Macd. Boundless intemperance 

In nature is a tyranny ; it hath been 
Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne, 
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet 
To take upon you what is yours : you may 
Convey 12 your pleasures in a spacious plenty, 
And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink. 
We've willing dames enough ; there cannot be 
That vulture in you, to devour so many 
As will to greatness dedicate themselves, 
Finding it so inclined. 

Mai. With this, there grows, 

In my most ill-composed affection, such 
A stanchless avarice that, were I king, 
I should cut off the nobles for their lands ; 
Desire his jewels, and this other's house : 13 
And my more-having would be as a sauce 
To make me hunger more ; that I should forge 
Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal, 
Destroying them for wealth. 

11 Continent for restraining or holding in ; one of its Latin senses. 

12 To convey was sometimes used for to manage or carry through a thing 
artfully and secretly. So the Poet has it several times. 

13 One man's jewels and another man's house, is the meaning. 



SCENE III. MACBETH. 139 

Macd. This avarice 

Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root 
Than summer-seeming lust ; 14 and it hath been 
The sword of our slain kings : 15 yet do not fear ; 
Scotland hath foisons to fill up your- will, 
Of your mere own. All these are portable, 
With other graces weigh'd. 16 

Mai. But I have none : the king-becoming graces, 
As justice, verity, temperance, 17 stableness, 
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, 
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, 
I have no relish of them ; but abound 
In the division 18 of each several crime, 
Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should 
Pour the sweet milk of concord into Hell, 
Uproar the universal peace, confound 
All unity on Earth. 19 

Macd. O Scotland, Scotland ! 

Mai. If such a one be fit to govern, speak : 
I am as I have spoken. 

14 Summer-resembling lust ; the passion that burns awhile like Summer, 
and like Summer passes away ; whereas the other passion, avarice, has no 
such date, but grows stronger and stronger to the end of life. So Donne, 
in one of his poems, has " a summer-seeming Winter's night." 

15 Probably meaning " the sword that has slain our kings " ; or, perhaps, 
" the evil that has caused our kings to be slain with the sword." 

16 Foison is an old word for plenty or abundance. — Portable is endurable. 
— Weigh'd for balanced, counterpoised, or compensated. — " Your mere own " 
is entirely or absolutely your own. Mere and merely were often used thus. 

17 Temperance in its proper Latin sense of self-restraint ; the opposite of 
intemperance as used a little before. — Verity for veracity. 

18 Division seems to be used here in the sense of variation. So it ap- 
pears to have been sometimes used as a term in music. 

19 A singular use of uproar; but probably meaning to turmoil, to fili 
with tumult and uproar. — Confound, again, for destroy. 



I 4° MACBETH. ACT IV. 

Macd. /Fit to govern ! 

No, not to live, -j— O nation miserable, 
With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, 
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, 
Since that the truest issue of thy throne 
By his own interdiction stands accursed, 
And does blaspheme his breed? — Thy royal father 
Was a most sainted king : the queen that bore thee, 
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, 
Died every day she lived. Fare thee well ! 
These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself 
Have banish'd me from Scotland. — O my breast, 
Thy hope ends here ! 

Mai. Macduff, this noble passion, 

Child of integrity, hath from my soul 
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts 
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth 
By many of these trains 20 hath sought to win me 
Into his power ; and modest wisdom plucks me 
From over-credulous haste : but God above 
Deal between thee and me ! for even now 
I put myself to thy direction, and 
Unspeak mine own detraction ; here abjure 
The taints and blames I laid upon myself, 
For strangers to my nature. I am yet 
Unknown to woman ; never was forsworn ; 
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own ; 

20 Trains is arts or devices of circumvention. The Edinburgh Review x 
October, 1872, shows the word to have been " a technical term both in 
hawking and hunting : in hawking, for the lure thrown out to reclaim a fal- 
con given to ramble ; and in hunting, for the bait trailed along the ground, 
and left exposed, to tempt the animal from his lair or covert, and bring him 
fairly within the power of the lurking huntsman." 



SCENE in. MACBETH. 141 

At no time broke my faith ; would not betray 
The Devil to his fellow ; 21 and delight 
No less in truth than life : my first false-speaking 
Was this upon myself. What I am truly, 
Is thine and my poor country's to command ; 
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach, 
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men, 
Already at a point, 22 was setting forth : 
Now we'll together ; and the chance of goodness 
Be like our warranted quarrel ! 23 Why are you silent ? 
Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once 
'Tis hard to reconcile. 

Enter a Doctor. 

Mai. Well, more anon. — Comes the King forth, I pray 
you? 

Doct. Ay, sir ; there are a crew of wretched souls 
That stay his cure : their malady convinces 24 
The great assay of art ; but, at his touch, 
Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand, 
They presently amend. 

Mai. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. 

Macd. What's the disease he means ? 

Mai. 'Tis call'd the evil : 

A most miraculous work in this good King ; 

21 Fellow for friend or companion ; and the sense is, that, if he would 
not betray the Devil to his friend, much less would he betray him to his en- 
emy. Pretty strong ! 

22 At a point is ready , prepared ; or at a stop or period where there is 
nothing further to be said or done. 

23 «« May the chance for virtue to succeed be as good, as well warranted, 
as our cause is just." For this use of quarrel in the sense of cause, see page 
50, note 5. 

24 Convince, again, in its old sense of overcome. See page 77, note 17. 



T42 MACBETH. act rv. 

Which often, since my here-remain in England, 

I've seen him do. How he solicits Heaven, 

Himself best knows : but strangely -visited people, 

All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, 

The mere 25 despair of surgery, he cures ; 

Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, 

Put on with holy prayers : and 'tis spoken, 

To the succeeding royalty he leaves 

The healing benediction. 26 With this strange virtue, 

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy ; 

And sundry blessings hang about his throne, 

That speak him full of grace. 

Enter Ross. 

Macd. See, who comes here? 

Mai. My countryman ; but yet I know him not. 
Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. 
Mai. I know him now. 27 — Good God, betimes remove 
The means that makes us strangers ! 

Ross. Sir, amen. 

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did? 

Ross. Alas, poor country, 

25 Mere, again, for absolute or utter. See page 139, note 16. 

26 Holinshed has the following respecting Edward the Confessor : " As 
it has been thought, he was inspired with the gift of prophecy, and also to 
have the gift of healing infirmities and diseases. He used to help those 
that were vexed with the disease commonly called the king's evil, and left 
that virtue as it were a portion of inheritance unto his successors, the kings 
of this realm." The custom of touching for the king's evil was not wholly 
laid aside till the days of Queen Anne, who used it on the infant Dr. John- 
son. — The golden stamp was the coin called angel. 

27 The Prince at first distrusts Ross, just as he had before distrusted 
Macduff: but he has given his confidence unreservedly to the latter ; and 
now he has full faith in Ross as soon as he sees how Macduff regards him. 
The passage is very delightful. — Means, next line, is put for cause. 



SCENE ill. MACBETH. I43 

Almost afraid to know itself ! It cannot 

Be call'd our mother, but our grave : where nothing, 

But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile ; 28 

Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air, 

Are made, not mark'd ; where violent sorrow seems 

A modern ecstasy : 29 the dead man's knell 

Is there scarce ask'd for who ; and good men's lives 

Expire before the flowers in their caps, 

Dying or ere they sicken. 

Macd. O, relation 

Too nice, 30 and yet too true ! 

Mai. What's the newest grief? 

Ross. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker ; 31 
Each minute teems a new one. 

Macd. How does my wife ? 

Ross. Why, well. 32 

Macd. And all my children ? 

Ross. Well too. 

Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace ? 

Ross. No ; they were well at peace when I did leave 
'em. 

Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech : how goes't ? 

Ross. When I came hither to transport the tidings, 
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour 

28 Where none but idiots and innocents are ever seen to smile. 

29 Ecstasy is any strong disturbance of mind. See page 105, note 5. — 
Modern is common, trite, every-day; as in the well-known passage, " Full 
of wise saws and modern instances." 

30 Too nice, because too elaborate, or having too much an air of study 
and art ; and so not like the frank utterance of deep feeling. 

31 That which is but an hour old seems out of date, and so causes the 
speaker to be hissed as tedious. 

32 An equivocal phrase, the sense of which is explained in Antony and 
Cleopatra, ii. 5 : " We use to say the dead are well'' 



144 MACBETH. act iv 






Of many worthy fellows that were out ; 33 
Which was to my belief witness 'd the rather, 
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot : 
Now is the time of help ; your eye in Scotland 
Would create soldiers, make our women fight, 
To doff 34 their dire distresses. 

Mai. Be't their comfort 

We're coming thither : gracious England hath 
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men ; 
An older and a better soldier none 
That Christendom gives out. 

Ross. Would I could answer 

This comfort with the like ! But I have words 
That would be howl'd out in the desert air, 
Where hearing should not latch them. 35 

Macd. What concern they? 

The general cause ? or is it a fee -grief 36 
Due to some single breast? 

Ross. No mind that's honest 

But in it shares some woe ; though the main part 
Pertains to you alone. 

Macd. If it be mine, 

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it. 

Ross. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, 

33 Here out has the force of in arms, or in open revolt. — What follows 
means that the rumour is confirmed by the fact that Macbeth has put his 
troops in motion. — For that \% because, or for the reason that. A frequent 
usage. 

34 Doff is do off. So the Poet has don for do on H and dup for do up. 

35 Present usage would here transpose should and would. See page 75, 
note 9. — Latch is an old North-of-England word for catch. Our door-latch 
is that which catches the door. 

36 A fee-grief is a private or individual grief, as distinguished from one 
that is public or common. 



scene in. MACBETH. 1 45 

Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound 
That ever yet they heard. 

Macd. Hum ! I guess at it. 

Ross. Your castle is surprised ; your wife and babes 
Savagely slaughter 'd : to relate the manner, 
Were, on the quarry 37 of these murder'd deer, 
To add the death of you. 

Mai. Merciful Heaven ! — 

AVhat, man ! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows :<;/ 
Give sorrow words ; the grief that does not speak 
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. 

Macd. My children too ? 

Ross. Wife, children, servants, all 

That could be found. 

Macd. And I must be from thence ! — 

My wife kill'd too ? 

Ross. I've said. 

Mai. Be comforted : 

Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, 
To cure this deadly grief. 

Macd. He has no children. 38 — All my pretty ones ? 
Did you say all ? — O hell-kite ! — All ? 

37 Quarry was a hunter's term for a heap of dead game, and was often 
applied as here. See Hamlet, page 231, note 65. — In "murder'd deer," it 
may seem that the Poet intended a pun ; but probably not ; at least I can 
hardly think he meant the speaker to be conscious of it as such. 

38 " He has no children " is most likely said of Malcolm, and with refer- 
ence to what he has just spoken ; though I believe it is commonly taken as 
referring to Macbeth, and in the idea that^as he has no children, there can 
be no adequate revenge upon him. But the true meaning, I have no doubt, 
is, that if Malcolm were a father, he would know that such a grief cannot 
be healed with the medicine of revenge. Besides, it would seem that Mac- 
beth has children ; else why should he strain so hard to have the regal suc- 
cession " stand in his posterity" ? And Lady Macbeth " knows how tender 
'tis to Jove the babe that milks me." ~ 



146 MACBETH. ACT IV. 

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam 
At one fell swoop ? 39 

Mai. Dispute it like a man. 

Macd. I shall do so ; 

But I must also feel it as a man : 
I cannot but remember such things were, 
That were most precious to me. Did Heaven look on, 
And would not take their part ? Sinful Macduff, 
They were all struck for thee ! naught 40 that I am, 
Not for their own demerits, but for mine, 
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now ! 

Mai. Be this the whetstone of your sword : let grief 
Convert toAnger ; blunt not the heart, enrage it. 

Macd./O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, 
And braggart with my tongue ]/— But, gentle Heaven, 
Cut short all intermission ; front to front 
Bring Thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; 
Within my sword's length set him ; if he scape, 
Heaven forgive him too ! 41 

MaL This tune goes manly. 42 

Come, go we to the King : our power is ready ; 

39 Swoop was a term for the descent of a bird of prey upon his quarry. 

40 Naught appears to have had the same meaning as bad, only stronger, 
It should not be confounded with nought. 

41 The little word too is so used here as to intensify, in a very remarka- 
ble manner, the sense of what precedes. " Put him once within the reach 
of my sword, and if I don't kill him, then I am as bad as he, and may God 
forgive us both ! " I cannot point to an instance anywhere of language 
more intensely charged with meaning. 

42 How admirably Macduff's grief is in harmony with the whole play ! 
It rends, not dissolves the heart. " The tune of it goes manly." Thus is 
Shakespeare always master of himself and of his subject, — a genuine Pro- 
teus; — we see all things in him, as images in a calm lake, most distinct, 
most accurate, — only more splendid, more glorified. — COLERIDGE. 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 147 

Our lack is nothing but our leave : 43 Macbeth 

Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above 

Put on their instruments. 44 Receive what cheer you may : 

The night is long that never finds the day. [Exeunt. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. 
Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman. 

Doct. I have two nights watch'd with you, but can per- 
ceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walk'd ? 

Gentlew. Since his Majesty went into the field, 1 I have 
seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown 2 upon her, 
unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read 
it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed ; yet all this 
while in a most fast sleep. 

Doct. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once 
the benefit of sleep and do the effects 3 of watching ! In this 
slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual per- 
formances, what at any time have you heard her say ? 

43 That is, " nothing remains to be done here but to take our leave ot 
the King." A ceremony of parting. 

^Instruments is here used of persons. — Put on means stir up, insti- 
gate, urge on. Often so. See Hamlet, page 195, note 28. 

1 In the preceding scene, Macbeth was said to have his " power a-foot " 
against " many worthy fellows that were out." Probably the coming of the 
English forces has induced him to withdraw his troops from the field, and 
put them within the strong fortress of Dunsinane. 

2 That is, dressing-gown, not what we call a night-gown. 

3 Effects here means acts or actions. Repeatedly so. 



I 4 8 MACBETH. ACT V. 

Gentlew. That, sir, which I will not report after her. 

Doct. You may to me ; and 'tis most meet you should. 

Gentlew. Neither to you nor any one ; having no witness 
to confirm my speech. 

Enter Lady Macbeth, with a Taper. 
Lo you, here she comes ! This is her very guise ; and, upon 
my life, fast asleep. Observe her ; stand close. 4 

Doct. How came she by that light ? 

Gentlew. Why, it stood by her : she has light by her con- 
tinually ; 'tis her command. 5 

Doct. You see, her eyes are open. 

Gentlew. Ay, but their sense is shut. 

Doct. What is it she does now ? Look, how she rubs her 
hands. 

Gentlew. It is an accustom 'd action with her, to seem 
thus washing her hands : I have known her continue in this 
a quarter of an hour. 

Lady M. Yet here's a spot. 

Doct. Hark ! she speaks : I will set down what comes 
from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. 

Lady M. Out, damned spot ! out, I say ! — One, two ; 
why, then 'tis time to do't. — Hell is murky ! 6 — Fie, my 

4 Here, as often, close is secret, hidden, or in concealment. 

5 Was this to avert the presence of those " sightless substances " once 
impiously invoked ? She seems washing her hands, and " continues in this 
a quarter of an hour." What a comment on her former boast, "A little wa- 
ter clears us of this deed ! " — Bucknill. 

6 Some commentators think that Lady Macbeth imagines her husband 
to utter these words, and repeats them after him with a peculiar intonation 
as in ridicule or reproach of his fears. And so I suspect it is. But the 
learned Editors of the " Clarendon Press Series " think otherwise decidedly 
and note as follows : " Her recollections of the deed and its motives alter- 
nate with recollections of subsequent remorse and dread of future punish- 
ment." 



SCENE I. MACBETH. 149 

lord, fie ! a soldier, and afeard ? What need we fear who 
knows it, when none can call our power to account ? — Yet 
who would have thought the old man to have had so much 
blood in him ? 

Doct. Do you mark that ? 

Lady M. The Thane of Fife had a wife : where is she 
now? — What, will these hands ne'er be clean? — No more 
o' that, my lord, no more o' that : you mar all with this 
starting. 7 

Doct. Go to, go to ; you have known what you should not. 

Gentlew. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of 
that : Heaven knows what she has known. 

Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still : all the per- 
fumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. 8 O I 
O! O! 

Doct. What a sigh is there ! The heart is sorely charged. 

Gentlew. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for 
the dignity of the whole body. 

Doct. Well, well, well, — 

7 She is alluding to the terrors of Macbeth on seeing the Ghost of Ban- 
quo in the banquet-scene. 

8 Upon this passage, Verplanck, after remarking how fertile the sense of 
smell is in the milder and gentler charms of poetry, adds the following : 
" But the smell has never been successfully used as the means of impress- 
ing the imagination with terror, pity, or any of the deeper emotions, except 
in this dreadful sleep-walking of the guilty Queen, and in one parallel scene 
of the Greek Drama, as wildly terrible as this. It is that passage of the 
Agamemnon of ^Eschylus, where the captive prophetess Cassandra, wrapt 
m visionary inspiration, scents first the smell of blood, and then the vapours 
of the tomb breathing from the palace of Atrides, as ominous of his ap- 
proaching murder. These two stand alone in poetry ; and Fuseli in his 
lectures informs us that when, in the kindred art of painting, it has been 
attempted to produce tragic effect through the medium of ideas drawn 
from ' this squeamish sense,' even Raphael and Poussin have failed, and 
excited disgust instead of terror or compassion." 



150 MACBETH. ACT V. 

Gentlew. Pray God it be, sir. 9 

Doct. — this disease is beyond my practice : yet I have 
known those which have walk'd in their sleep, who have died 
holily in their beds. 

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown ; look 
not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried ; he 
cannot come out on's grave. 

Doct. Even so ? 

Lady M. To bed, to bed ! there's knocking at the gate : 
come, come, come, come, give me your hand : what's done 
cannot be undone : to bed, to bed, to bed ! [Exit. 

Doct. Will she go now to bed ? 

Gentlew. Directly. 

Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad : unnatural deeds 
Do breed unnatural troubles : infected minds 
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. 
More needs she the divine than the physician. — 
God, God forgive us all ! — Look after her ; 
Remove from her the means of all annoyance, 10 
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night : 
My mind she has mated xx and amazed my sight. 
I think, but dare not speak. 

Gentlew. Good night, good doctor. 

\_Exeunt. 

9 Does the Gentlewoman misunderstand the Doctor's " Well, well, well," 
or does she mean this as a further hint how dreadful the thing is ? At all 
events, I have long been wont to pause upon it as one of the Poet's quiet, 
unobtrusive master-strokes of delineation. 

10 That is, the means of doing violence to herself. 

11 To mate or amate is to astonish, to strike with dismay. 



SCENE II. MACBETH. 151 



Scene II. — The Country near Dunsinane. 

Drum and Colours. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, 
Lennox, and Soldiers. 

Ment. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, 
His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff: 
Revenges burn in them ; for their dear causes 
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm 
Excite the mortified man. 1 

Ang. Near Birnam wood 

Shall we well meet them ; that way are they coming. 

Caith. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother? 

Len. For certain, sir, he is not : I've a file 
Of all the gentry : there is Siward's son, 
And many unrough 2 youths, that even now 
Protest their first of manhood. 

Ment. What does the tyrant? 

Caith. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies : 
Some say he's mad ; others, that lesser hate him, 
Do call it valiant fury : 3 but, for certain, 
He cannot buckle his distemper'd course 
Within the belt of rule. 

Ang. Now does he feel 

His secret murders sticking on his hands ; 

1 Would rouse and impel even a hermit to the war, to the signal for car- 
nage and horror. By " the mortified man " is meant a religious man ; one 
who has mortified his passions, is dead to the world. 

2 Unrough is unbearded, smooth-faced. So in The Tempest : " Till new- 
born chins be rough and razorable." 

3 Fury in the poetical sense ; inspiration, or heroic rapture. So in Hoby- 
noll's lines to Spenser in praise of The Faerie Queene : " Some sacred fury 
hath enrich'd thy brains." 




152 MACBETH. act v 

Now minutely revolts 4 upbraid his faith-breach ; 
Those he commands move only in command, 
Nothing in love •/ now does he feel his title 
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe 
Upon a dwarfish thief, J 

Ment. Who, then, shall blame 

His pester'd senses to recoil and start, 5 
When all that is within him does condemn 
Itself for being there ? 

Caith. Well, march we on, 

To give obedience where 'tis truly owed : 
Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal ; 6 
And with him pour we in our country's purge 
Each drop of us. 

Len. Or so much as it needs, 

To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds. 7 
Make we our march towards Birnam. \_Exeunt, marching. 

Scene III. — Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. 

Enter Macbeth, the Doctor, and Attendants. 

Macb. Bring me no more reports ; let them fly all : 
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, 
I cannot taint 1 with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? 
Was he not born of woman ? The spirits that know 

4 " Minutely revolts " are revolts occurring every minute. 

5 That is, for recoiling and starting. See page 86, note 26. 

6 " The medicine of the sickly weal " refers to Malcolm, the lawful Prince. 
In the olden time, the best remedy for the evils of tyranny, or the greater 
evils of civil war, was thought to be a king with a clear and unquestioned 
title. 

7 " Let us shed so much of our blood as may be necessary in order to 
seat our rightful Prince on the throne, and destroy the usurping tyrant." 

1 To taint is to corrupt, to infect ; here used intransitively. 



scene in. MACBETH. r - ? 

All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus : 

Fear not, Macbeth ; no man that's born of woman 

Shall e'er have power upon thee. Then fly, false thanes, 

And mingle with the English epicures : 2 

The mind I sway by and the heart I bear 

Shall never sag* with doubt nor shake with fear. — 

Enter a Servant. 

J The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon !<* 
Where gott'st thou that goose look ? 
Serv. There is ten thousand — 

Macb ' Geese, villain? 

Serv. , ,. 

, , , _ . , boldiers, sir. 

Macb. Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear 
Thou lily-liver 'd boy.* What soldiers, patch ?6 
Death of thy soul ! those linen cheeks of thine 
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face ? 

Serv. The English force, so please you. 

Macb. Take thy face hence. - ^ Exit Servant 

Seyton ! — I'm sick at heart, 

2 Scotland being a comparatively lean and sterile country, the Scotch 
might naturally plume themselves on being plain livers and high thinkers 
and so speak of the high-feeding English as epicures. 

8 Z° sa ?> or *™V. ^ to hang down by its own weight. "A word " says 
Mr. Furness, of every-day use in America among mechanics and engin- 
eers. And I can add that I used to hear it often among farmers 
_ 4 This word, which signifies a base, abject fellow, was formerly common 
m England, but spelt lown, and is justly considered by Home Tooke as the 
past participle of to low or abase. Lout has the same origin. 

5 Lily-liver' d, white-liver 'd, milk-liver' d, were all strong words for cow 
ardly; the liver being formerly considered the special seat of courage- 
where, however, courage could not live without a good supply of the red 

6 Patck was often used as a term Qf contempt The use probab 
trom the motley ox patch-work dress worn by professional fools. 



154 MACBETH. ACT v. 

When I behold — Seyton, I say ! — This push 

Will chair me ever, or dis-seat me now. 7 

I have lived long enough :/ my way of life 

Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf p 

And that which should accompany old age, 

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 

I must not look to have ; but, in their stead, 

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, 

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. — 

Seyton ! 

Enter Seyton. 

Seyt. What is your gracious pleasure ? 

Macb. What news more ? 

Seyt. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported. 

Macb. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. — 
Give me my armour. 

Seyt. 'Tis not needed yet. 

Macb. I'll put it on. 
Send out more horses, skirr 9 the country round ; 
Hang those that talk of fear. — Give me mine armour. — 
How does your patient, doctor ? 

Doct Not so sick, my lord, 

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, 
That keep her from her rest. 

Macb. /Cure her of that : 



7 " Will seat me firmly on the throne, or else will unseat me utterly." If 
he whip the present enemy, his tenure of the crown will be confirmed ; if he 
fail now, there will be no more hope for him. 

8 Sere is dry, withered. Often so used. — " Way of life " is merely an en- 
larged expression for life. Macbeth's complaint is, that he is now growing 
old, and that he cannot expect to have the natural comforts of old age. 

9 Skirr is an old word for scour, and has the sense of moving swiftly. So 
in King Henry V. t iv. 7 : " And make them skirr away, as swift as stones 
enforced from the old Assyrian slings." 



SCENE III. MACBETH. I55 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased ; 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ; 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain ; 
And with some sweet-oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart ?jf 

Doct. -■' Therein the patient 

Must minister to himself. 

Macb. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it. — 
Come, put mine armour on ; give me my staff. 10 — 
Seyton, send out. — Doctor, the thanes fly from me. — - 
Come, sir, dispatch. — If thou couldst, doctor, cast 
The water of my land, 11 find her disease, 
And purge it to a sound and pristine health, 
I would applaud thee to the very echo, 
That should applaud again. — Pull't off, I say. 12 — 
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, 
Would scour these English hence ? Hear'st thou of them ? 

Doct. Ay, my good lord ; your royal preparation 
Makes us hear something. 

Macb. Bring it 13 after me. — 

I will not be afraid of death and bane, 
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane. 

[Exeunt all but the Doctor. 

Doct. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, 
Profit again should hardly draw me here. [Exit. 

10 Staff probably means his symbol of military command ; general's 
baton. Or it may mean a fighting-tool ; his la?ice. 

11 Probably alluding to the old custom of medical diagnosis by inspect- 
ing or casting the patient's water. So that the language is equivalent to 
" diagnosticate all the people of Scotland." 

12 Spoken to the armourer, who has got a piece of the armour on wrong, 

13 Referring to the piece which he has just ordered the armourer to pull off 



.J—— •— 



156 MACBETH. ACT V. 

Scene IV. — Country near Birnam Wood. 

Drum and Colours, Enter Malcolm, Old Siward and his 
Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox. 
Ross, and Soldiers, marching. 

Mai. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand 
That chambers will be safe. 1 

Ment. We doubt it nothing. 

Siw. What wood is this before us ? 

Ment. The wood of Birnam. 

Mai. Let every soldier hew him down a bough, 
And bear't before him : thereby shall we shadow 
The numbers of our host, and make discovery 
Err in report of us. 

Soldiers. It shall be done. 

Siw. We" learn no other but the confident tyrant 
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure 
Our sitting down before 't. 

Mai. 'Tis his main hope : 

For, where there is advantage to be ta'en, 
Both more and less 2 have given him the revolt ; 
And none serve with him but constrained things, 
Whose hearts are absent too. 

Macd. Let our just censures 

Attend the true event, 3 and put we on 
Industrious soldiership. 

1 Referring, probably, to the spies and informers whom Macbeth keeps 
in the noblemen's houses, prowling about their private chambers, and list- 
ening at their key-holes. See page 117, note 25. 

2 More and less is the old phrase for great and small, or high and low. 

3 Another proleptical form of speech ; the meaning being, " Let our judg- 
ments wait for the actual result, the issue of the contest, in order that they 
may be just." See page 113, note 11. 



scene v. MACBETH. 157 

[ ip Siw. The time approaches 

That will with due decision make us know 
What we shall say we have, and what we owe. A 
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate ; 
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate : 5 
Towards which advance the war. [Exeunt, marching. 

Scene V. — Dunsinane. Within the Castle. 

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with Drum and 

Colours. 

Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls ; 
The cry is still They come ! Our castle's strength 
Will laugh a siege to scorn : here let them lie 
Till famine and the ague eat them up : 
Were they not forced 1 with those that should be ours, 
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, 
And beat them backward home. — \_A cry of women withi7i* 

What is that noise ? 

Seyt. It is the cry of women, my good lord. [Exit. 

Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears : 
The time has been, my senses would have quail'd 
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell 2 of hair 

4 Evidently meaning, " When we have a king that will rule by law we 
shall know both our rights and our duties." I make this note simply be- 
cause some have vented an unworthy sneer, not indeed at the Poet, but at 
the brave old warrior for speaking thus. 

5 Referring, apparently, to Malcolm's last speech, which proceeds some- 
what upon conjecture and seeming likelihood. The old war-horse means, 
*' There's no use in talking about it, and eating the air of expectation ; noth- 
ing but plain old-fashioned fighting will decide the matter." 

1 Forced is strengthened, reinforced. A frequent usage. 

2 Fell is hairy scalp, or any skin covered with hair or wool. — To hear is 
still another gerundial infinitive ; at hearing. 



158 Macbeth. act v. 

Would at a dismal treatise 3 rouse and stir 
As life were in't : I have supp'd full with horrors ; 
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, 
Cannot once start me. — 

Re-enter Seyton. 

Wherefore was that cry? 
Seyt. The Queen, my lord, is dead. 
» Macb. She should have died hereafter ; 
*There would have been a time for such a word. 4 
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,/ 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, 
To the last syllable of recorded time ; 5 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. , Out, out, brief candle ! 
Life's but a walking shadow ; a poor player, 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
And then is heard no more : it is a tale 

3 Dismal treatise probably means a tale of cruelty, or of suffering. 

4 Another instance of the indiscriminate use of should and would; and 
the meaning is, " If she had not died now, she would have died hereafter ; 
the time would have come when such a word must be spoken." The ex- 
planation of the whole passage comes to me well worded from Mr. Joseph 
Crosby ; though the substance of it was put forth many years ago by the 
Rev. Mr. Arrowsmifh : " Macbeth's soliloquy is pure fatalis?n. ' I used to 
be frightened out of my senses at almost any thing : now nothing — not even 
the most terrible calamities — can make any impression upon me. What 
must be, I know will be.' ' The Queen, my lord, is dead.' ' Well, be it so : 
had she not died now, she would have had to die some time. So creeps 
along every thing in the world, with petty pace from day to day : every to- 
morrow has its yesterday, and every yesterday its to-morrow ; and thus men 
go on from yesterdays to to-morrows, like automatic fools, until they drop 
into the dusty grave.' " 

5 " The last syllable of recorded time " means simply the last syllable of 
the record of time. Such proleptical forms of speech are uncommonly fre- 
quent in this play. 



SCENE V. MACBETH. 159 

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
Signifying nothing. 6 — -f 

Enter a Messenger. 

Thou comest to use thy tongue ; thy story quickly. 

Mess. Gracious my lord, 
I should report that which I'd say I saw, 
But know not how to do't. 

Macb. Well, say it, sir. 

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, 
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, 
The wood began to move. 

Macb. Liar and slave ! 

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so : 
Within this three mile may you see it coming ; 
I say, a moving grove. 

Macb. If thou speak'st false, 

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, 
Till famine cling 7 thee ; if thy speech be sooth, 
I care not if thou dost for me as much. — 
I pall 8 in resolution, and begin 
To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend, 
That lies like truth : Fear not, till Birnam wood 
Do come to Dunsinane ; and now a wood 

6 Alas for Macbeth ! Now all is inward with him ; he has no more pru- 
dential prospective reasonings. His wife, the only being who could have 
had any seat in his affections, dies : he puts on despondency, the final 
heart-armour of the wretched, and would fain think every thing shadowy 
and unsubstantial; as indeed all things are to those who cannot regard 
them as symbols of goodness. — Coleridge. 

7 To cling, in the northern counties, signifies to shrivel, wither, or dry up. 
Clung-wood is wood of which the sap is entirely dried or spent. 

8 To pall is to droop, to fall away, to languish, to grow faint. See Ham- 
let, page 212, note 4. 



l6o MACBETH. ACT V. 

Comes toward Dunsinane. — Arm, arm, and out ! 

If this which he avouches does appear, 

There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. 

I } gin to be aweary of the Sun, 

And wish th' estate o' the world were now undone. — 

Ring the alarum-bell ! — Blow, wind ! come, wrack ! 

At least we'll die with harness 9 on our back. \_Exeunz. 

Scene VI. — Dunsinane. Before the Castle. 

Drum and Colours. Enter Malcolm, Old Siward, Mac- 
duff, and their Army, with Boughs. 

Mai. Now near enough • your leafy screens throw down, 
And show like those you are. — You, worthy uncle, 
Shall, with my cousin,, your right-noble son, 
Lead our first battle : 1 worthy Macduff and we 
Shall take upon's what else remains to do, 
According to our order. 

9 Harness for armour, and so the word was often used. — Here I must 
again quote from Professor Dowden : " The soul of Macbeth never quite 
disappears into the blackness of darkness. He is a cloud without water 
carried about of winds ; a tree whose fruit withers, but not even to the last 
plucked up by the roots. For the dull ferocity of Macbeth is joyless. All 
his life has gone irretrievably astray, and he is aware of this. His suspicion 
becomes uncontrollable ; his reign is a reign of terror ; and, as he drops 
deeper and deeper into the solitude and the gloom, his sense of error and 
misfortune, futile and unproductive as that sense is, increases. Finally his 
sensibility has grown so dull that even the intelligence of his wife's death — 
the death of her who had been bound to him by such close communion in 
crime — hardly moves him, and seems little more than one additional inci- 
dent in the weary, meaningless tale of human life. Macbeth remembers 
that he once knew there was such a thing as human goodness. He stands 
a haggard shadow against the hand's-breadth of pale sky which yields us 
sufficient light to see him." 

1 Battle was often put for army in battle-array : here it is put, apparently, 
for a part of such an army ; the van. 



SCENE VII. MACBETH. l6l 

|p Siw. Fare you well. 

Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night, 
Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight. 

Macd. Make all our trumpets speak ; give them all breath K 
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. [Exeunt 

Scene VII. — Another Part of the Field. 
Alarzcms. Enter Macbeth. 
Macb. They've tied me to a stake ; I cannot fly, 
But, bear-like, I must fight the course. 2 What's he 
That was not born of woman ? Such a one 
Am I to fear, or none. 

Enter Young Siward. 

Yo. Siw. What is thy name ? 

Macb. Thou 'It be afraid to hear it„ 

Yo. Siw. No ; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name 
Than any is in Hell. 

Macb. My name's Macbeth. 

Yo. Siw. The Devil himself could not pronounce a title 
More hateful to mine ear. 

Macb. No, nor more fearful. 

Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant ; with my sword 
I'll prove the lie thou speak'st. 

[They fight, and Young Siward is slain. 

2 This was a phrase of bear-baiting, where the bear was tied to a stake, 
and then the dogs set upon him : the poor bear could not run, and so had 
no way but to fight it out. — " The end of Macbeth," says Professor Dow- 
den, " is savage, and almost brutal, — a death without honour or loveliness. 
He fights now, not like ' Bellona's bridegroom lapp'd in proof,' but with a 
wild and animal clinging to life. His followers desert him; he feels him- 
self taken in a trap. The powers of evil in which he had trusted turn 
against him and betray him. His courage becomes a desperate rage. We 
are in pain until the horrible necessity is accomplished." 



162 



MACBETH. ACT v 



Macb. Thou wast born of woman. 

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, 
Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born. {Exit. 

Alarums. Enter Macduff. 

Macd. That way the noise is. — Tyrant, show thy face ! 
If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine, 
My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. 
I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms 
Are hired to bear their staves : either thou, Macbeth, 
Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge, 
I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be ; 
By this great clatter, one of greatest note 
Seems bruited. 3 — Let me find him, fortune ! 
And more I beg not. [Exit. Alarums. 

Enter Malcolm and Old Siward. 

Siw. This way, my lord. The castle's gently render'd : 
The tyrant's people on both sides do fight ; 
The noble thanes do bravely in the war : 
The day almost itself professes yours, 
And little is to do. 

Mai. We've met with foes 

That strike beside us. 4 
~~ S iw - Enter, sir, the castle. 

{Exeunt. Alarum. 

3 Bruited is reported, noised abroad. See Hamlet, page 61, note 26. — Of 
course, wherever Macbeth goes, he has a strong guard or escort attending 
him ; and the clattering of so many feet and swords would indicate his ap- 
proach. 

4 '* Foes who take pains not to hit us ; who are only shamming fight 
against us, while their hearts are on our side." 



scene viil. MACBETH. 1 63 

Scene VIII. — Another Part of the Field. 

Enter Macbeth. 
/ 
< Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, 1 and die 

On mine own sword ? whiles I see lives, the gashes 

Do better upon them. 2 

Enter Macduff. 

Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn J— <*-~~- v ^ 

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee : 
But get thee back ; my soul is too much charged 
With blood of thine already. 

Macd. I have no words, 

My voice is in my sword ; thou bloodier villain 
Than terms can give thee out 1/ \They fight 

Macb. Thou losest labour : 

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant 3 air 
With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed : 
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests ; 
I bear a charmed life, 4 which must not yield 
To one of woman born. 

Macd. Despair thy charm ; 

And let the angel whom thou still hast served 

1 Probably alluding either to the suicide of Cato at Utica or that of Bru* 
tus at Philippic perhaps to both. 

2 " While I see living foes, it is better to be killing them than to kill my- 
self." 

3 To trench is to cut, to wound ; so that intrenchant is invulnerable ; lit- 
erally, uncuttable. 

4 " A charmed life " is a life secured against human assault by " the might 
of magic spells." So in Cymbeline, v. 3 : " I, in mine own woe charm'd, 
could not find death where I did hear him groan, nor feel him where he 
struck." 



1 64 MACBETH. ACT v. 

Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb 
Untimely ripp'd. 

Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, 
For it hath cow'd my better part of man ! 
And be these juggling fiends no more believed, 
That palter 5 with us in a double sense ; 
That keep the word of promise to our ear, 
And break it to our hope. — I'll not fight with thee. 

Macd. Then yield thee, coward, 
And live to be the show and gaze o' the time : 
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, 
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit 
Here may you see the tyrant^ 

Macb. I will not yield, 

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, 
And to be baited 7 with the rabble's curse. 
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, 
And thou opposed, being of no woman born, 
Yet I will try the last : before my body 
I throw my warlike shield : lay on, Macduff; 
And damn'd be he that first cries Hold, enough ! 8 

[Exeunt, fighting. Alarums. 

5 To palter is to shuffle or equivocate, to haggle or dodge. Often so. 

6 Alluding to the Barnum practice of the time ; which was, to get some 
strange animal for a show, and then hang out an exaggerated painting of 
the beast to attract customers. 

7 Baited is barked at ox worried, as dogs worried a chained bear. 

8 To cry hold ! when persons were fighting, was an authoritative way of 
separating them, according to the old military laws. This is shown by a 
passage in Bellay's Instructions for the Wars, declaring it to be a capital 
offence, " Whosoever shall strike stroke at his adversary, either in the heat 
or otherwise, if a third do cry hold, to the intent to part them." This illus- 
trates the passage in i. 5, of this play : " Nor Heaven peep through the 
blanket of the dark to cry Hold! hold!" 



SCENE VIII. MACBETH. 165 

Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with Drum and Colours, Mal- 
colm, Old Siward, Ross, the other Thanes, and Soldiers. 

Mai. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived. ' 

Siw. Some must go off : 9 and yet, by these I see, 
So great a day as this is cheaply bought. 

Mai. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. 

Ross. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt : .^W 
* He only lived but till he was a man ; 
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd 
In the unshrinking station where he fought, 10 
But like a man he died. 

Siw. Then he is dead? 

Ross. Ay, and brought off the field : your cause of sorrow 
Must not be measured by his worth, for then 
It hath no end. 

Siw. Had he his hurts before ? 

Ross. Ay, on the front. 

Siw. Why, then God's soldier be he ! 

Had I as many sons as I have hairs, 
I would not wish them to a fairer death : 
And so, his knell is knoll' d. 

Mai. He's worth more sorrow, 

And that I'll spend for him. 

Siw. He's worth no more : 

They say he parted well, and paid his score : n 
And so, God b' wi' him ! Here comes newer comfort. 

9 The meaning probably is, that in such a contest some must be killed of 
course. 

10 That is, the place where he fought without shrinking. 

11 To part and to depart were used indiscriminately. The allusion is to 
a traveller taking leave of an inn. — Score is account or bill. Tavern ac- 
counts were commonly kept either by marking down the items with chalk 



166 MACBETH. ACT v. 

Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's Head on a Pole. 

Macd. Hail, King ! for so thou art : behold, where stands 
Th' usurper's cursed head : the time is free. 
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl, 12 
That speak my salutation in their minds ; 
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine : 
Hail, King of Scotland ! 

All. Hail, King of Scotland ! [Flourish, 

Mai. We shall not spend a large expense of time 
Before we reckon with your several loves, 
And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen, 
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland 
In such an honour named. 1 "* What's more to do, 
Which would be planted newly with the time, — 
As calling home our exiled friends abroad^ 
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny ; 

on a board, or by notches cut, scored, in a stick. — This little episode of old . 
Siward and his son is taken from Holinshed : " It is recorded also, that in 
the foresaid battell, in which earle Siward vanquished the Scots, one of 
Siwards sonnes chanced to be slaine, whereof although the father had good 
cause to be sorowfull, yet when he heard that he died of a wound which he 
had receiued in fighting stoutlie in the forepart of his bodie, and that with 
his face towards the enimie, he greatlie reioised thereat, to heare that he 
died so manfullie." 

12 Pearl is here a collective noun, and equivalent to jewels. The meta- 
phor is of a string of pearls encircling the neck, or the head, of royalty. 
Just the right thing to be said of the brave men who have vindicated Mal- 
colm's title, and rid their country of the butchering tyrant. Milton has a 
like use of pearl in one of his sonnets : " But this is got by casting pearl to 
hogs." 

13 Malcolm, immediately after his coronation, called a parliament at For- 
fair ; in the which he rewarded them with lands and livings that had assist- 
ed him against Macbeth. Manie of them that were before thanes were at 
this time made earles ; as Fife, Menteith, Atholl, Levenox, Murrey, Carth* 
ness, Rosse, and Angus. — HOLINSHED. 

14 " Friends exiled abroad " is the natural order of the words. 



scene VIII. MACBETH. 167 

Producing forth the cruel ministers 
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like Queen, 
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands 
Took off her life ; — this, aiid what needful else 
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace 
We will perform in measure, time, and place : 
So, thanks to all at once and to each one, 
Whom we invite to see us crown 'd at Scone. 

[Flourish. Exeur. t 



SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON. 



EVERY one ripely conversant with Shakespeare's manner, 
and thoroughly at home in his idiom of thought and lan- 
guage, especially in his peculiar mode of conceiving and working 
out character, must, I think, have at least a dim sense, if not a 
clear perception, of disharmony and incongruity in certain por- 
tions of this tragedy. Many years ago I had something of this 
feeling ; but, as the whole play was then universally ascribed to 
Shakespeare, I did not dare to trust such feeling : I sought, and 
of course easily found, refuge from it in the thought, that Shake- 
speare, even in his wisest days, was not wise at all hours, and 
that in his highest hours he had occasional moments of nodding, 
as Homer is said to have ; that sometimes, for popular effect, he 
put in, or let in, things which his own imperial judgment could 
not approve ; and that, in his serene carelessness, or perhaps in 
his calm assurance, of fame, both his genius and his taste in- 
dulged themselves now and then in rather emphatic lapses, and 
even — I almost dread to speak it — in pretentious platitudes. 

The feeling in question was first moved by the wide contrast 
between what comes from the Witches, in Act i., scene 3, before 
the entrance of Macbeth and Banquo, and what comes from the 
Weird Sisters after that entrance. The difference is not merely 
one of degree, but of kind ; a difference as broad and as pronounced 
as that between a tadpole and an eagle. In the former case, they 
are neither more nor less than the coarse, foul old-woman witches 
of ancient superstition ; creatures actuated by the worst and low- 

169 



1 70 MACBETH. 

est human motives and passions, envy, malice, and spite ; killing 
swine, sailing in sieves, assuming the forms of rats without tails, 
dealing in the thumbs of wrecked pilots, and riding through the 
air on broomsticks. Their aspect and behaviour are in the last 
degree commonplace and vulgar ; there is nothing even respect- 
able about them ; all is of the earth earthy. In the latter case, 
they are mysterious and supernatural beings, unearthly and ter- 
rible, such as we may well conceive " the Goddesses of Destiny" 
to be : their very aspect at once strikes the beholder with dread 
and awe: they "look not like the inhabitants of the Earth": 
they do not come and go, they appear and vanish ; bubbling up, 
as it were, through the ground from the lower world, in some- 
thing of a human shape, to breathe the contagion of Hell upon a 
soul which they know to be secretly in sympathy with them, and 
inwardly attempered to their purposes. Surely every one who 
reads that scene, with his thoughts about him, and having him- 
self fairly in hand, must catch at least some glimpses of this huge 
discrepancy : still I felt bound to presume that the Poet's great 
and wonderful art had some way of reconciling it. 

Again, in the second scene of Act L, it was long ago apparent, 
that either Shakespeare assumed a style not properly his own, or 
else that another hand than Shakespeare's held the pen. But, 
for the peculiarity here displayed, Coleridge gave a plausible, if 
not a sufficient reason. " The style," says he, " and rhythm of 
the Captain's speeches in the second scene should be illustrated 
by reference to the interlude in Hamlet, in which the epic is sub- 
stituted for the tragic, in order to make the latter be felt as the 
real-life diction." In this explanation of the matter I rested, as 
perhaps some others did. But surely the two cases are not par- 
allel at all : there is no such occasion here for a change of style 
as there is in Hamlet: there, it is a play within a play; here, 
nothing of the kind. 

At length, in the year 1869, Mr. W\ G. Clark and Mr. W. A. 
Wright, the learned Editors of the " Clarendon Press Series," 
led off in a new solution of the difficulty. I propose, first, to re- 
produce, partly in their own words, so much of their theory, and 



SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON. 171 

of their arguments in support thereof, as I concur in ; my lim- 
ited space not well affording room for the whole of it. Before 
doing this, however, I must advert briefly to another matter. 

In the Introduction I have spoken of the peculiar relation 
which has long been known to subsist between Shakespeare's 
Macbeth and The Witch of Thomas Middleton. That relation 
was discovered in manner as follows. In the original copy of 
Macbeth, Act iii., scene 5, we have the stage-direction, " Music^ 
and a Song' 1 ' 1 ; and then, two lines after, another stage-direction, 
"Sing within. Come away, co?ne away, Q^c." Again, in Act 
iv., scene 1, we have the stage-direction, "Music, and a Song. 
Black Spirits, 6r B ^." Thus in both places the songs are merely 
indicated, not printed. — In 1674, Sir William Davenant pub- 
lished an altered version of the tragedy, giving both songs in 
full, but making no sign as to the source of them ; so that they 
were supposed to be his own composition. So the matter stood 
till 1779, when the manuscript of Middleton's play, The Witch, 
was discovered by George Steevens ; and there both songs were 
found, in nearly the same words as Davenant had given them. 
From this it was easily gathered why the songs were not printed 
at length in the folio of 1623. Macbeth was of course there 
printed from a playhouse manuscript ; and those songs were pre- 
sumed to be so well known to the actors of the play in the form 
it then had, that a bare indication of them was enough. 

The date of Middleton's play has not been ascertained, nor 
have we any means of ascertaining it. The forecited particulars 
infer, of course, that The Witch must have been written some 
time before Macbeth acquired the form in which it has come down 
to us. On the other hand, besides the particulars specified 
above, Clark and Wright point out various resemblances both of 
thought and language in the two plays, — resemblances much too 
close and literal to be merely accidental. So that one of the 
authors must have borrowed from the other. Now, several of 
these resemblances occur in those parts of the tragedy which 
are unquestionably Shakespeare's, and which bear the clearest 
tokens of his mintage. It is, on the face of the thing, nowise 



172 MACBETH. 



ton: 



likely that Shakespeare would have borrowed from Middleton: 
but, Middleton's connection with the tragedy being established, 
nothing is more likely than that he may have borrowed from 
Shakespeare. The natural conclusion therefore is, that Macbeth 
was well known, and its very language familiar, to Middleton be- 
fore he wrote The Witch, or while he was writing it. Here, then, 
we have a contradiction, or seeming contradiction ; which, how- 
ever, is easily cleared up by supposing the original form of the 
tragedy to have been in being before The Witch was written, and 
that the tragedy received its present form after the writing of The 
Witch. 

Middleton's play was doubtless highly popular on the stage for 
a time : the witchcraft-scenes especially yield ample food for a 
transient popularity. Finding that his representation of old- 
woman witches pleased the popular taste and took well with the 
multitude, he would naturally crave to repeat or prolong the 
thing with some variation. In Shakespeare's tragedy he may 
well have seen a cheap and ready way of catering still further to 
the popular taste. Upon the supposal of his having taken Mac- 
beth in hand with this view, we can easily perceive strong induce- 
ments for him to assimilate, as far as might be, the sublime and 
unique creations of Shakespeare's imagination to the commonplace 
and vulgar offspring of his own fancy, which he had found so 
profitable. 

To those at all booked in the usages of the Elizabethan stage, 
it is well known that stock plays, as they are called, belonging to 
the theatrical companies, and laid up in their archives, were often 
taken in hand, overhauled, altered, improved, and brought out 
afresh, either as new plays or as old plays with new attractions. 
It is as certain as any thing of the kind well can be, that Shake- 
speare himself exercised his hand more or less in thus recasting 
and amending old stock plays; and such, no doubt,, was the 
genesis of the Second and Third Parts of King Henry the Sixth, 
of The Taming of the Shrew, of Pericles, and perhaps some 
others, as we now have them in the Poet's works. It is also well 
known that his manuscripts were owned by the theatrical com- 



SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON. 1 73 

pany of which he was a member ; and that they remained in the 
company's hands, as their property, both during his life and after 
his death. What, then, is more likely than that some of his 
plays may in turn have been subjected to the same process which 
he had himself used on the workmanship of others, though not 
indeed with the same result? And so, I have no doubt, it was. 
The thing was quite too common for any scruples to spring up 
about it. — I may as well add, here, that Middleton died in 1627, 
eleven years after the death of Shakespeare ; and that he con- 
tinued to write more or less for the stage till near the close of his 
life. 

The matter, I believe, is now ready for something to be heard 
from Clark and Wright. — " If we were certain," say they, " that 
the whole of Macbeth, as we now read it, came from Shakespeare's 
hand, we should be justified in concluding from the data before 
us, that Middleton, who was probably junior and certainly infe- 
rior to Shakespeare, consciously or unconsciously imitated the 
great master. But we are persuaded that there are parts of Mac- 
beth which Shakespeare did not write ; and the style of these 
seems to us to resemble that of Middleton. It would be very un- 
critical to pick out of Shakespeare's works all that seems inferior 
to the rest, and to assign it to somebody else. At his worst, he 
is still Shakespeare ; and, though the least ' mannered ' of all 
poets, he has always a manner which cannot well be mistaken. 
In the parts of Macbeth of which we speak we find no trace of 
his manner. But to come to particulars. We believe that the 
second scene of the first Act was not written by Shakespeare. 
Making all allowance for corruption of text, the slovenly metre is 
not like Shakespeare's work, even when he is most careless. 
The bombastic phraseology of the Sergeant is not like Shake- 
speare's language, even when he is most bombastic." 

The writers then go on to allege the fact, for such it is, that 
in one point this scene is strangely inconsistent with what is said 
in the following scene „ For Ross, in giving Duncan an account 
of the battle, here represents the Thane of Cawdor as having 



1 74 MACBETH. 

fought on the side of the invaders, till Macbeth "confronted 
him with self caparisons, point against point rebellious " ; where- 
as in the next scene we have Macbeth speaking as if he knew 
nothing whatever of Cawdor's treason : ' ' The Thane of Cawdor 
lives, a prosperous gentleman." Angus, also, who enters along 
with Ross, in the third scene, speaks of Cawdor thus . " Whether 
he was combined with those of Norway, or did line the rebel 
with hidden help and vantage, I know not ; but treasons capital, 
confess'd and proved, have overthrown him." To be sure, 
Shakespeare has, not seldom, slight lapses of memory, or what 
seem such ; but that he would have penned so glaring a contra- 
diction as this amounts to, who can believe? 

Nevertheless the writers in question admit that the second 
scene has a few lines which taste strongly of Shakespeare ; such 
as, " The multiplying villainies of nature do swarm upon him" ; 
and, "Confronted him with self caparisons, point against point 
rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, curbing his lavish spirit." To these 
I should certainly add "Where the Norweyan banners flout the 
sky, and fan our people cold " ; which is to me distinctly Shake- 
spearian. 

The opening part, also, of the third scene, down to the en- 
trance of Macbeth and Banquo, they rule off from Shakespeare. 
Here, again, I fully agree with them : for, besides that the style 
is not at all like Shakespeare's, I have a deeper reason in that, as 
before observed, his conception of the Weird Sisters is overlaid 
and strangled with discordant and irrelevant matter. How much 
out of keeping this is with Shakespeare's delineation of charac- 
ter, need not be said. Therewithal the dramatic flow and cur- 
rent, it seems to me, would be far better without this part of the 
scene. 

Referring to the fifth scene of Act iii., they observe that, if 
this scene "had occurred in a drama not attributed to Shakespeare, 
no one would have discovered in it any trace of Shakespeare's 
manner." This is putting it very softly : for, besides that a new 
personage, Hecate, is here introduced without any apparent cause, 
the style and versification taste even less of Shakespeare than it 



SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON. 1 75 

the forecited portion of i., 3 ; and the whole scene is, in point 
of dramatic order and sequence, a sheer incumbrance, serving no 
purpose but to untune the harmony of the action. 

Again, touching the cauldron-scene, Act iv., scene 1, they 
speak as follows: "The rich vocabulary, prodigal fancy, and 
terse diction displayed in the first thirty-eight lines, show the 
hand of a master, and make us hesitate in ascribing the passage 
to any one but the master himself. There is, however, a con- 
spicuous falling off in the eight lines after the entrance of Hecate. 11 
And of the last eight lines before the Witches vanish, beginning 
with "Ay, sir, all this is so, 11 they say that these "cannot be 
Shakespeare^. 11 

To all this I heartily subscribe ; and thus, to my mind the 
Poet stands acquitted of all the choral passages ; which, it seems 
to me, only blemish the proper dramatic austerity of the play, how- 
ever they may add to its attractiveness as a popular performance. 
Nor do I believe it ever entered into Shakespeare^ head to " un- 
bend the noble strength " of this great tragedy with any such 
mellifluous intervals. 

Besides the forecited passages, the same writers point out sev- 
eral " rhyming tags, 11 and shorter passages, which they justly rule 
off from Shakespeare as interpolations. As these are distin- 
guished in this edition by Italic type, they need not be specified 
here. The writers then add the following : — 

" Finally, the last forty lines of the play show evident traces 
of another hand than Shakespeare^. The double stage-direc- 
tion, i Exeunt fighting? — ' Enter fighting, and Macbeth slain," 1 
proves that some alteration had been made in the conclusion of 
the piece. Shakespeare, who has inspired his audience with pity 
for Lady Macbeth, and made them feel that her guilt has been 
almost absolved by the terrible retribution which followed, would 
not have disturbed this feeling by calling her a ' fiend-like queen ' ; 
nor would he have drawn away the veil which with his fine tact 
he had dropped over her fate, by telling us that she had taken 
off her life ' by self and violent hands.' " 

In reference, again, to the opening of the play, these writers 



I 76 MACBETH. 

pronounce as follows : ' ' The twelve lines which now make the 
first scene, and which, from long familiarity, we regard as a 
necessary introduction to the play, are not unworthy of Shake- 
speare ; but, on the other hand, do not rise above the level which 
is reached by Middleton and others of his contemporaries in 
their happier moments.'" 

As remarked in the Introduction, the opening of Forman's ac- 
count looks as if the play did not then begin with the scene in 
question. Nothing, however, can be soundly inferred from this. 
He may have chosen to begin his account with what struck him 
with peculiar force ; or, as Clark and Wright observe, " he may 
have arrived at the theatre a few minutes late. 1 ' For my part, I 
have scarce any doubt that the first scene is Shakespeare's, all 
except the two lines which I print in Italic type, and in which the 
Weird Sisters are made to talk just like vulgar witches. For, as 
the entire course of the action turns on the agency of the Weird 
Sisters, it were in strict keeping with the Poet's usual manner to 
begin by thus striking the key-note of the whole play. 

I must add, that the Clarendon Editors further rule off, as 
interpolations, the soliloquy and dialogue of the Porter, in Act ii., 
scene 1, and also the passage about "touching for the evil," in 
iv., 3. Here, however, I dissent from them altogether. 

The theory whereby they account for the condition in which 
Macbeth has ^ reached us is propounded as follows : " On the 
whole, we incline to think that the play was interpolated after 
Shakespeare's death, or at least after he had withdrawn from all 
connection with the theatre. The interpolator was, not improb- 
ably, Thomas Middleton ; who, to please the ' groundlings, 1 ex- 
panded the parts originally assigned by Shakespeare to the Weird 
Sisters, and also introduced a new character, Hecate. The sig- 
nal inferiority of her speeches is thus accounted for." 

In 1876, the Rev. Frederick G. Fleay put forth a highly instruc- 
tive volume entitled Shakespeare Manual. Mr. Fleay takes up 
the question where the Clarendon Editors left it, and handles it 
throughout with admirable learning and candour. He accepts all 






SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON. 177 

their forecited conclusions, except that touching the Porter's 
soliloquy and dialogue, but insists on pushing the argument much 
further. First, he excludes the whole of the first scene, which, 
as before shown, Clark and Wright do not. Second, he rules oft 
the second scene, as Clark and Wright also do ; but thinks, and 
rightly, I have no doubt, that "in all probability this scene re- 
places one of Shakespeare's " ; a few of his lines being perhaps 
retained, and worked in with the inferior matter. He concurs 
with Clark and Wright also about the third scene, down to the 
entrance of Macbeth and Banquo. And he takes the same 
course touching all the Hecate matter, both in iii., 5, and in iv., 
1. I must here quote, with slight abbreviation, what he says of 
this matter : " This un-Shakespearian Hecate does not use Shake- 
spearian language : there is not a line in her part that is not in 
Middleton's worst style ; her metre is a jumble of tens and eights, 
(iambic, not trochaic like Shakespeare's short lines,) a sure sign 
of inferior work; and, what is of most importance, she is not of 
the least use in the play in any way : the only effect she produces 
is, that the three Fate-goddesses, who in the introduction of the 
play were already brought down to ordinary witches, are lowered 
still further to witches of an inferior grade, with a mistress who 
* contrives their charms, 1 and is jealous if any ' trafficking' goes 
on in which she does not bear her part. She and her 'songs are 
all alike not only of the earth earthy, but of the mud muddy. 
They are the sediment of Middleton's puddle, not the sparkling 
foam of the living waters of Shakespeare." 

But Mr. Fleay's distinctive position is in reference to the caul- 
dron business in iv., 1. "What," he asks, "are the witches" 
of that scene? " are they the ' Weird Sisters, 1 fairies, nymphs, or 
goddesses? or are they ordinary witches or wizards, and entirely 
distinct from the three mysterious beings in i., 3? I hold the 
latter view." He then goes on to admit that the first thirty-eight 
lines of iv., 1, down to the entrance of Hecate, are greatly supe- 
rior to the thirty-seven lines of i., 3, before the entrance of Mac- 
beth and Banquo. And he fully agrees with Clark and Wright, 
that the former are Shakespeare's ; but says he " cannot identify 



T 78 MACBETH, 

these witches with the Nomas" of i., 3, after the entrance of 
Macbeth and Banquo. " The witches," says he, "in iv., 1, arc 
just like Middleton's witches, only superior in quality. They are 
clearly the originals from whom his imitations were taken. Their 
charms are of the sort popularly believed in. Their powers are 
to untie the winds, lodge corn, create storms, raise spirits ; but 
of themselves they have not the prophetic knowledge of the 
Weird Sisters, the all-knowers of Past, Present, Future : they 
must get their knowledge from their masters, or call them up to 
communicate it themselves." 

Thus he does not allow the Witches of that scene to be the 
Weird Sisters at all, or to have any thing in common with them. 
Nevertheless he candidly refers to two passages where they are 
clearly identified with the Weird Sisters : one near the close of 
iii., 4, where Macbeth himself says, " I will to-morrow, ay, and 
betimes' I will, to th' Weird Sisters"; the other in iv., 1, just 
after the Witches vanish, where Macbeth asks Lennox, " Saw you 
the Weird Sisters ? " And he frankly admits that both these pas- 
sages are Shakespeare's. He then adds the following: "If my 
theory be true, those two passages must be explained. This is a 
real difficulty, and I cannot satisfactorily solve it at present. I can 
only conjecture that Shakespeare made a slip, or intended Mac- 
beth to make one." Professor Dowden aptly searches the core of 
Mr. Fleay's position by observing, " It is hardly perhaps a sound 
method of criticism to invent a hypothesis, which creates an in- 
soluble difficulty." 

But is there any way of fairly accounting for the altered lan- 
guage and methods used in the cauldron business, without dis- 
possessing the Weird Sisters of their proper character? Let us 
see. 

The Weird Sisters of course have their religion ; though, to be 
sure, that religion is altogether Satanic. For so essential is 
religion of some kind to all social life and being, that even the 
society of Hell cannot subsist without it. Now, every religion, 
whether human or Satanic, has, and must have, a liturgy and 
ritual of some sort, as its organs of action and expression. The 



SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON. 1 79 

Weird Sisters know, by supernatural ways, that Macbeth is burn- 
ing to question them further, and that he has resolved to pay them 
a visit. To instruct and inspire him in a suitable manner, they 
arrange to hold a religious service in his presence and behalf. 
And they fitly employ the language and ritual of witchcraft, as 
being the only language and ritual which he can understand and 
take the sense of: they adopt, for the occasion, the sacraments 
of witchcraft, because these are the only sacraments whereby they 
can impart to him the Satanic grace and efficacy which it is their 
office to dispense. The language, however, and ritual of witch- 
craft are in their use condensed and intensified to the highest de- 
gree of potency and impressiveness. Thus their appalling infernal 
liturgy is a special and necessary accommodation to the senses 
and the mind of the person they are dealing with. It really 
seems to me that they had no practicable way but to speak and 
act in this instance just like witches, only a great deal more so. 
But, in the Middleton scenes and parts of scenes, they are made 
to speak and act just like common witches, to no purpose, and 
without any occasion for it. This is, indeed, to disnature them, 
to empty them of their selfhood, and turn them clean out of 
themselves. 

It may not be amiss to add, in this place, that Shakespeare 
of course wrote his plays for the stage ; but then he also, in a 
far deeper and higher sense, wrote them for the human mind. 
And the divinity of his genius lies pre-eminently in this, that, 

i while he wished to make his workmanship attractive and fruitful 
in the theatre, he could not choose but make it at the same time 

I potent and delectable in the inner courts of man's intelligent 
and upward-reaching soul. But this latter service was a thing 
that Middleton knew nothing of, and had not the heart to con- 
ceive. 

I return to Mr. Fleay. — To the few smaller interpolations 
pointed out by the Clarendon Editors, he adds a considerable 
number. These call for some notice. Clark and Wright make 
particular mention of a passage in Act v., scene 5, as fol- 
lows:— 



i8o MACBETH. 

Arm, arm, and out! 
If this which he avouches does appear. 
There is nor fiying hence nor tarrying here. 
I 'gin to be aweary of the Sun, 

And wish th' estate o' the world were now undone. — 
Ring the alarum bell ! — Blow, wind ! come wrack! 
At least we'll die with harness on our back. 

And of the four lines here underscored they justly observe, 
' ' How much better the sense is without them ! " Let any one 
read the passage without these lines, and surely he must see that 
Shakespeare could not have written them. In like manner, Mr. 
Fleay calls attention to the close of v., 6, where Macduff, whose 
speech is everywhere else so simple, so manly, and so condensed, 
is made to utter the following strutting and ambitious platitude : 

Make all our trumpets speak ; give them all breath, 
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. 

The other passages pointed out by Mr. Fleay are as follows : 
Act i., scene 4, the eight lines and a half beginning, " The Prince 
of Cumberland!" Also, ii., 1, at the end, " There's warrant in 
that theft," &c. Also, ii., 2, the two couplets beginning, " Well, 
may you see things, 1 ' and, " God's benison go with you." Also, 
iii., 4, the four and a half lines beginning, " I am in blood." And 
so the end of the scene, " My strange and self-abuse," &c. Also, 
iv., 1, the four lines and two half-lines beginning, " bid the tree." 
And at the close of the scene, the line and a half, " No boast- 
ing," &c. Also, v., 1, last line but one of the scene, " My mind 
she has mated," &c. Also, v., 3, the two couplets at the close, 
" I will not be afraid," &c, and, "Were I away from Dunsinane," 
&c. Also, the five and a half lines at the end of v., 4, " The 
time approaches," &c. 

In all the forecited cases I accept Mr. Fleay's rulings, and ac- 
cordingly print the passages in Italic type. I have also distin- 
guished in the same way two passages on my own judgment, as 
follows: Act i., scene 5, Lady Macbeth's speech at the end, 
11 Only look up clear," &c. ; and also, v., 3, the couplet begin- 
ning, " The mind I sway by." And there are several other pas- 



SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON. l8l 

sages which I strongly suspect ought to be put on the same list •, 
particularly the couplet, i., 5, "Which shall to all our nights,'' 
&c. Perhaps, also, the couplet at the end of L, 7, " Away, and 
mock the time," &c. And perhaps the line and a half at the 
close of v., 2, " Or so much as it needs," &c. Again, in hi., 2, 
the three and a half lines beginning, " Nought's had, all's spent, 1 ' 
taste strongly of another hand, and as if foisted in as a substitute 
for something Shakespeare had written. Lastly, and especially, 
the five lines and a half at the close of the same scene, beginning, 
" Light thickens, and the crow makes wing." I am all but satis- 
fied that this is not Shakespeare's ; for it is not only flat and 
feeble, but hardly consistent with what precedes ; and seems, in- 
deed, the work of one who fancied he was surpassing Shake- 
speare. In all these cases, however, I do not feel quite sure enough 
to venture a full decision, and therefore leave them unmarked. 

As regards the closing part of the play, all, I mean, that fol- 
lows, after Macbeth and Macduif go out fighting, I have not yet 
been able fully to make up my mind. The Clarendon Editors, as 
we have seen, rule it all off from Shakespeare. Mr. Fleay speaks 
of it as follows : ' ' The account of young Siward's death and the 
unnatural patriotism of his father, which is derived from Holin- 
shed's history of England, and not of Scotland like the rest of 
the play, is a bit of padding put in by Shakespeare after finishing 
the whole tragedy." To the best of my judgment, some portions 
of it are not unworthy of Shakespeare ; especially the speech of 
Macduff on his re-entrance with Macbeth's head. On the other 
hand, what old Siward says about the death of his son seems too 
hard and unnatural for Shakespeare's healthy human-heartedness 
to have written. To be sure, we cannot but feel that the brave 
old father's heart is not in his words ; and the latter may be taken 
as a spontaneous effort to hide his grief. So that I still hesitate- 
As to the last speech, however, I have no doubts whatever, and 
accordingly print it in Italic type. 

I close with a statement, somewhat condensed, of Mr. Fleay's 
" theory as to the composition of the play." " It was written," 
says he, " by Shakespeare during his third period : I think, after 



1 82 MACBETH. 

Hamlet and King Lear; so that its date was probably 1606. At 
some time after this, Middleton revised and abridged it : I agree 
with the Cambridge Editors in saying not earlier than 1613. 
There is a decisive argument that he did so after he wrote The 
Witch ; namely, that he borrows the songs from the latter play, 
and repeats himself a good deal. It is to me very likely that he 
should repeat himself in Macbeth, and somewhat improve on his 
original conception, as he has done in the corresponding pas- 
sages ; and yet be unable to do a couple of songs, or to avoid the 
monotony of introducing Hecate in both plays. I believe that 
Middleton, having found the groundlings more taken with the 
Witches, and the cauldron, than with the grander art displayed 
in the Fate-goddesses, determined to amalgamate these, and to 
give us plenty of them. I believe also the extra fighting in the 
last scenes was inserted for the same reason. But, finding that 
the magic and the singing and the fighting made the play too 
long, he cut out large portions of the psychological Shakespeare 
work, in which, as far as quantity is concerned, this play is very 
deficient compared with the three other masterpieces of world- 
poetry, and left us the torso we now have. To hide the excisions, 
Middleton put on tags at the places where he made the scenes 
end : and, to my thinking, if any one will compare the endings 
of the scenes where Shakespeare has left them without tags with 
those where I have tried to show that Middleton put them in, he 
will find that there is a great difference in the completeness of the 
scenes. Or try another experiment: cut off the tags from the 
scenes where Shakespeare put them, and those where Middleton 
put them ; a similarly decisive result will be felt." 

There remains but to add, that I have no doubt whatever of 
the play's having been greatly shortened in the process of altera- 
tion. For the alteration was evidently prosecuted with a view to 
stage-effect. Such being the case, those parts which were most 
effective on the stage would naturally be retained, and others 
added still more suited to catch the applause of the groundlings ; 
while such parts as were especially at home in the courts of 
reason and thought would be cast aside. 

/ 




CRITICAL NOTES ON MACBETH 



ACT I., SCENE I. 



Page 47. When shall we three meet again 

In thunder, lightning, and in rain ? — So Hanmer. The 
original has " Lightning, or in raine." This makes the three, thunder, 
lightning, rain, alternative ; the sense, expressed in full, being " either 
in thunder or in lightning or in rain." The context and the occasion 
apparently require the sense of those three words to be cumulative. 

P. 48. / Witch. Where the place ? 

2 Witch. Upon the heath. 

3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth. — There is surely 
some corruption here ; for Macbeth was evidently meant to rhyme with 
heath, but there needs another syllable to make it do so. And every- 
where else, I think, Macbeth has the ictus on the second syllable. Per- 
haps bold, brave, proud, or great should be supplied before the name. 

P. 48. 1 Witch. I come, graymalkin. 
2 Witch. Paddock calls : — Anon ! 
All. Fair is foul, and foul is fair : 
Hover through the fog and filthy air. — So Pope. The original 

prints the last two speeches as one, with All prefixed. Dyce's remark 
is right, beyond question: "Surely it is evident that the author in- 
tended only the concluding couplet to be spoken in chorus." White 
prints "Anon! " as a separate speech, and prefixes to it "j Witch" 
In a note he says, "The arrangement of the text seems to me to be 
required both by the succession of the thoughts, and by the ternary 
sequence of the dialogue of the Witches throughout all the scenes in 



184 MACBETH. 



1 



utl 



which we see them at their incantations." Perhaps he is right. But 
do not believe we have the scene as Shakespeare wrote it ; and I am 
sure that the first two lines are not his. Probably Middleton threw 
out some of Shakespeare's gold, and thrust in some of his own dross. 

ACT I., SCENE II. 

P. 49. Say to the King thy knowledge of the broil. — So Walk- 
er. The original has " Say to the King the knowledge." 

P. 50. Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied ; 
And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, 
Show'd like a rebel's trull ; but all's too weak : &c. In the 
first of these lines, the original has Gallowgrosses. Corrected in the 
second folio. In the second line, the original has " damned quarry" 
The change of quarry to quarrel is made in Collier's second folio, but 
had been adopted by most of the editors before that volume was heard 
of. It is amply justified by Holinshed's account of the matter : " Out 
of the Western Isles there came unto him a great multitude of people, 
offering themselves to assist him in that rebellious quarrel." And later 
in the play we have " the chance of goodness be like our warranted 
quarrel ! " where " warranted quarrel " is just the opposite of " damned 
quarrel." See, also, foot-note 5. — For is, in the first line, Pope sub- 
stitutes was, and also, in the third line, changes all's to all. Of course 
this is done to redress the confusion of tenses. And Lettsom says, 
" Read, with Pope, ' was supplied ' : the corruption was caused by Do 
just above." And again, "Read, with Pope, l all too weak.'" But we 
have other like mixing of tenses in this scene. See foot-note 6. 

P. 50. And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him. — 

The original reads " Which nev'r shooke hands." As Which begins 
the third line above, it doubtless crept in here by accidental repetition. 
Corrected by Capell. 

P. 50. As whence the Sun gives his reflection 

Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break ; 
So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come 
Discomfort swells. — So Pope. The word break is wanting in 






CRITICAL NOTES. 1 85 



the original; which thus leaves both sense and metre defective. The 
second folio supplied breaking. — There has been some stumbling at 
swells here; I hardly know why: the meaning clearly is, grows big; 
just as a thunder-cloud often swells up rapidly into a huge, dark mass, 
where, a little before, the sky was full of comfort. Capell reads wells, 
which, to my sense, is nothing near so good. — In the first line, the 
original has 'gins instead of gives. Having never been able to un- 
derstand the old text, I adopt Pope's reading. Heath comments as 
follows : " The fact, in this island at least, is, that storms and thunder 
do as frequently take their course from the North and West as from 
the East. The hurricanes always proceed from the North, and turn to 
the westward. But this was not the point Shakespeare had in view. 
He draws the similitude from a very common appearance ; when a clear 
sky and bright sunshine are on a sudden overcast with dark clouds, 
which terminate in thunder and a short but very dangerous tempest, es- 
pecially in the lochs and narrow, embarrassed seas of Scotland. It is 
evident therefore that we ought to prefer the other reading, ' As whence 
the Sun gives his reflection'; that is, As from a clear sky whence 
the light of the Sun is transmitted in its full brightness." — See foot- 
note 9. 

P. 51. As cannons overcharged with double cracks; 

So they redoubled strokes upon the foe. — *So Pope. The 
original has " So they doubly redoubled stroakes"; doubly being proba- 
bly interpolated by some player in order to prolong the jingle on 
double. At all events, both sense and verse plead against it. Walker 
thinks the word has no business in the text. 

P. 51. What haste looks through his eyes! — So the second 
folio. The first has " What a haste." But the Poet has many like ex- 
clamative phrases without the article, which here mars the verse. See 
foot-note 15. 

P. 52. The Thane of Cawdor 'gan a dismal conflict ; 
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof, 
Confronted him with self caparisons. — In the first of these 
lines, the original has began instead of gan, and in the third, " selfe- 
eomparisons." It is, I think, hardly possible to squeeze any fitting 



1 86 MACBETH. 

sense out of comparisons here. The common explanation takes him as 
referring to Norway ; but this is plainly inconsistent with " Point 
against point rebellious." Self caparisons means that they were both 
armed in the self-same way. The correction is Mr. P. A. Daniel's. The 
folio has the same misprint again in Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13 : "I 
dare him therefore to lay his gay Comparisons a-part," &c. Here Pope 
reads caparisons, and rightly, beyond question. See foot-note 19. 



ACT I., SCENE III. 

P. 54. And the very points they blow, 

All the quarters that they know 

I' the shipman's card. — So Pope. The original has ports 
instead of points. Davenant's alteration of the play has " From all 
the points that seamen know." 

P. 56. How far is't call'd to Forres ? — The original has Soris. 

P. 57. 3 Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. 
All three. So, all hail, Macbeth and Banquo ! 
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail ! — The original makes the 
second of these lines a continuation of the preceding speech, and as- 
signs the third to the first Witch. But surely Lettsom is right in say- 
ing, "These two verses should be pronounced by I, 2, 3, in chorus." 
It seems rather strange that the error should have waited so long to be 
corrected. 

P. 58. His wonders and his praises do contend 

What should be thine or his. — The original has Which in- 
stead of What. Commentators have tugged mighty hard to wring a 
coherent and intelligible meaning out of the old reading, and I have 
tugged mighty hard to understand their explanations ; but all the hard 
tugging has been in vain. As Which must needs refer to wonders and 
praises, I make bold to say that the passage so read cannot be approved 
to be either sense or English. With What, the passage yields a sense, 
at least, and, I think, a fitting one ; though, to be sure, not of the clear* 
est. See foot-note 21. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 87 

P. 59. As thick as tale 

Came post with post ; and every one did bear, &c. — The 

original has Can instead of Came ; an obvious error, which Rowe cor- 
rected. Some editors cannot stand tale here, and substitute hail. 
Dyce asks, " was such an expression as ' thick as tale ' ever employed 
by any writer whatsoever ? " To which it might be answered that Shake- 
speare seems to have used it here. Dyce also quotes from old writers 
divers instances of " as thick as hail " ; which only shows that this was 
a commonplace hyperbole ; whereas Shakespeare may have chosen to 
use one less hackneyed ; as I think he had a right to do. Tale is the 
substantive form of the verb to tell ; and Shakespeare repeatedly uses 
the verb in the exact sense of to count ; as he also does thick in the 
exact sense of fast ; and surely the phrase " as fast as you can count " 
is common enough. See foot-note 23. 

ACT I., SCENE IV. 

P. 63. Is execution done on Cawdor ? Are not 

Those in commission yet return'd ? — So the second folio. 
The first has "Or not." 

ACT I., SCENE V. 

P. 67. Thou'dst have, great Glamis, 

That which cries "Thus thou must do," if thou have it, — 
An act which rather thou dost fear to do 
Than wishest should be undone. — Instead of " An act 
which," the original has " and that which." This defeats the right 
sense of the passage, as it naturally makes %vhich refer to the same 
thing as which in the preceding line ; whereas it should clearly be 
taken as referring to the words "Thus thou must do." Hanmer 
reads " And that's what "; and the same change occurred to me, as it 
also did to Mr. Joseph Crosby, before either of us knew of Hanmer's 
reading. But I prefer "An act which," and have little doubt that the 
original reading crept in by mistake from the line before. — The pas- 
sage is commonly printed so as to make the words " if thou have it " a 
part of what is supposed to be cried by the crown. The original gives 
no sign as to how much of the speech is to be taken thus, — none, that 



1 88 MACBETH. 

is, except what is implied in the word it. Of course the crown is the 
thing which Glamis would have ; and if the crown is here represented 
as crying out to him " Thus thou must do, if thou have," there appears 
no way of getting the sense but by substituting me for it. If, however, 
we suppose only the words " Thus thou must do " to be spoken by the 
crown, and the following words to be spoken by Lady Macbeth in her 
own person, then it is right ; and this is probably the way the passage 
ought to be understood and printed. Johnson saw the difficulty, and 
proposed to read " if thou have me." 

P. 68. That no compunctious visitings of nature 

Shake my fell purpose, nor break peace between 
Th' effect and it. — The original has keepe instead of breaks 
and hit instead of it. Tbe attempts that have been made to explain 
" nor keep peace," are, it seems to me, either absurdly ingenious and 
over-subtile or something worse. The natural sense of it is plainly 
just the reverse of what was intended. To be sure, almost any lan- 
guage can be tormented into yielding almost any meaning. And we 
have too many instances of what may be called a fanaticism of inge 
nuity, which always delights especially in a reading that none but it- 
self can explain, and in an explanation that none but itself can under- 
stand. See foot-note 8. — The other error, hit, corrects itself. 

P. 69. Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 

To cry " Hold, hold ! " — "The blanket of the dark" seems 
to have troubled some persons greatly ; and Collier's second folio sub- 
stitutes blankness for blanket. This is dreadful. "The blanket of 
the dark " is indeed a pretty bold metaphor, but not more bold than 
apt ; and I agree with Mr. Grant White, that " the man who does not 
apprehend the meaning and the pertinence of the figure had better 
shut his Shakespeare, and give his days and nights to the perusal of — 
some more correct and classic writer." See foot-note II. 

ACT I., SCENE VI. 

P. 70. The guest of Summer, 

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, &c. — The 

original has " This guest," and Barlet instead of martlet. The latter 




CRITICAL NOTES. 189 

was corrected by Rowe. As to the former, Lettsom says, " Read the. 
This was repeated by mistake from the beginning of the preceding 
speech." 

P. 71. "Where they most breed and haunt, &c. — The original 
has must instead of most. Corrected by Rowe. 

ACT L, SCENE VII. 

P. 73. But here, upon this bank and shoal of time. — The orig- 
inal has " Schoole of time." Theobald's correction. 

P. 74. Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 

That tears shall drown the wind. — Mr. P. A. Daniel would 
read." in every ear"; and in support of that lection he quotes the fol- 
lowing from Southwell, Saint Peter's Complaint, lxxvii. : — 
And seeke none other quintessence but tears, 
That eyes may shed what enter'd at thine ears. 

P. 74. Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, 

And falls on th' other side. — So Hanmer. The original 
lacks side, and yet puts a period after other. Walker notes upon it 
thus : " Evidently ' th' other side ' ; and this adds one to the apparently 
numerous instances of omission in this play." — It has been ingeniously 
proposed to change itself Into its sell, an old word for saddle. But the 
Poet very seldom uses its : besides, no change is necessary. See foot- 
note 8. 

P. 75. Wouldst thou lack that 

Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, 
And live a coward in thine own esteem, &c. — The original 
reads u Wouldst thou have that "; whereupon Johnson notes thus : " In 
this there seems to be no reasoning. I should read ' Or live '; unless 
we choose rather ' Wouldst thou leave that.' " The reading in the text 
was proposed anonymously, but occurred to me independently. In- 
stead of have, crave h^s also been proposed. But Lady Macbeth evi- 
dently means that, with so good an opportunity as he now has foi 
gaining the crown, nothing but cowardice can induce him to let it slip 



190 MACBETH. 

We have the same error again in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2: "If 
you'll patch a quarrel, as matter whole you have, to make it with," &c. 
Here have should be lack, beyond question. 

P. 75. I dare do all that may become a man ; 

Who dares do more is none. 

Lady M. What beast was't, then, 

That made you break this enterprise to me? — The orig- 
inal reads "Who dares no more"; a very palpable error. — Collier's 
second folio substitutes boast for beast, and the change has been re- 
garded with favour in some quarters. Mr. John Forster, in The Exam- 
iner, Jan. 29, 1853, disposes of it thus: "The expression immediately 
preceding and eliciting Lady Macbeth's reproach is that in which Mac- 
beth declares that he dares do all that may become a man, and that 
who dares do more is none. She instantly takes up that expression. 
If not an affair in which a man may engage, what beast was it, then, 
in himself or others, that made him break this enterprise to her? The 
force of the passage lies in that contrasted word, and its meaning is 
lost by the proposed substitution." 

P. 76. And dash'd the brains on't out, had I so sworn 

As you have done to this. — So Lettsom. The original lacks 
on't, which is needful alike to sense and metre. The omission was 
doubtless owing to the close resemblance of on't and out. 

P. 76. If we should fail, — 

Lady M. We fail. 

But, screw your courage to the sticking-place, 
And we'll not fail. — Such, I am very confident, is the right 
pointing of this much-disputed passage. It is commonly given either 
with an (!) or an (?) after fail, as if the speaker did not admit the 
possibility of failure, and scouted at any apprehension of the kind. 
Now I cannot think her so far gone in the infatuation of crime as not 
to see and own the possibility that the enterprise may fail ; but she is 
no doubt ambitious enough to risk life and all for the chance or in the 
hope of being a queen. And so I take her meaning to be, " If we 
fail, then we fail, and there's the end of it." And the use of the adver- 
sative but in what follows strongly favours this sense ; in fact, wiU 



CRITICAL NOTES. 191 

hardly cohere with any other sense. Accordingly the simple period is 
said to have been fixed upon by Mrs. Siddons after long study and 
exercise in the speech. See foot-note 15. 

ACT II., SCENE I. 

P. 79. Sent forth great largess to your officers. — The original 
has offices instead of officers. The context fairly requires a word denot- 
ing persons. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 81. Now o'er the one half-world 

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 
The curtain'd sleep ; now witchcraft celebrates 
Pale Hecate's offerings. — The second now is wanting in the 
original. Some complete the verse by printing sleeper ; but surely the 
repetition of now is much better. Rowe's correction. 

P. 81. With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design 
Moves like a ghost. — Thou sure and firm-set earth, 
Hear not my steps which way they walk, &c. — In the first 
of these lines, the original has sides instead of strides ; in the second, 
sowre instead of sure ; in the third, " which they may walke." The first 
two corrections are Pope's ; the other, Rowe's. 

P. 85. This my hand will rather 

The multitudinous sea incarnadine. — So Rowe. The 
original has Seas incarnardine. Some editors adopt incarnadine, but 
retain seas. In the former they are right, of course, there being really 
no svich word as incarnardine : but surely multitudinous loses more 
than half its force, if made the epithet of a plural noun. 

P. 89. Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of 
death : 
And, prophesying, with accents terrible, 
Of dire combustion and confused events 
New-hatch'd to th' woeful time, the obscene bird 
Clamour'd the livelong night. — The original has obscure 
instead of obscene. The correction was proposed by Walker and 
White independently. See foot-note 36. — Most editors have a differ- 



192 MACBETH. 

ent pointing in this passage ; putting a colon after woeful time, and 
thus separating bird from prophesying, and turning the latter into a 
substantive. But surely it is far better, both in poetry and in sense, 
to regard the obscene, that is, ill-omened, bird as predicting the dread- 
ful events in question. Or, if this be thought inconsistent with nezv- 
halch'd, we may, as White suggests, take prophesying in an interpretive 
sense, — the sense of croaking or wailing a dismal and awful meaning 
into what is occurring. The word is often so used in the Bible ; es- 
pecially in Ezekiel, xxxvii. 

P. 90. Banquo and Malcolm ! Donalbain ! awake \ 
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, 
And look on death itself ! up, up, and see 
The great doom's image ! Malcolm, Banquo ! all ! 
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites, 
To countenance this horror ! \_Alarum-bell rings. 

— In the first of these lines, the original reads "and Donalbaine : 
Malcolme" &c. I transpose the names for metre's sake. Also, in the 
fourth line, the original is without all, thus leaving a breach in the 
rhythm. The addition is Lettsom's. Again, the original has the last 
line thus : " To countenance this horror. Ring the bell " ; and then, 
in another line, the stage-direction, " Bell rings. Enter Lady." Here, 
no doubt, as Malone observes, the players mistook " Ring the bell " for 
a portion of Macduff's speech, and so inserted the stage-direction, 
" Bell rings." 

ACT II., SCENE n. 

P. 95. And Duncan's horse', — a thing most strange and 
certain, &c. — Instead of horse'' , the original has Horses. 
But elsewhere the Poet uses the singular form both of this word and 
of various others with the plural sense. See foot-note 2. 

ACT III., SCENE I. 

P. 97. It had been as a gap in our great feast, 

And all things unbecoming. — So the third and fourth folios. 
The first has all-thing, the second all-things. But the hyphen was so 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 93 

used in a great many instances where no one would now think of re- 
taining it. Some editors here print all-thing, and explain it by altogether 
or in every way. But I am not aware of any other instance being 
produced of the phrase so used in Shakespeare's time. 

P. 98. Lay your Highness' 

Command upon me. — So Rowe and Collier's second folio. 
The original has "Let your Highnesse," &c; which, surely, is not 
English, and never was. Mason proposes Set. 

P. 99. My genius is rebuked ; as, it is said, 

Mark Antony's was by Caesar's. — So Hanmer. The orig- 
inal has Casar instead of Ctzsar's. The correction is approved by a 
passage in Antony and Cleopatra, ii., 3 : " Thy demon, that's thy spirit 
which keeps thee, is noble, courageous, high, unmatchable, where 
Cesar's is not." 

P. 100. To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings ! — 

Instead of seed, the original has Seedes. Pope's correction. . 

P. 102. Now, if you have a station in the file, 

And not i' the worser rank of manhood, say't. — The 

original lacks And, and has worst instead of worser. The insertion 

was made by Rowe ; the correction proposed by Jervis. Shakespeare 
has worser repeatedly in the same sense. 

P. 102. So wearied with disasters, tugg'd with fortune. — So 

Capell, Collier's second folio, and Lettsom. The old text has " So 
wearie with Disasters." 

P. 103. I will advise you where to plant yourselves ; 

Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time, &c. — 

Johnson proposed, and White prints, "with a perfect spy." It is a 
nice point which of the articles should here be used. " The spy " may 
mean the espial or discovery, that is, the signal, of the time ; " a spy " 
would mean the person giving it. So I do not see that any thing is 
gained by the change. See foot-note 24. 



194 MACBETH. 

f 



ACT III., SCENE n. 



P. 105. We have but scotch'd the snake, not kilPd it. — The 
original reads " We have scorch? d the snake." The words, " She'll 
close" in the next line, show that scotched is right. Theobald's correc- 
tion. — The word but is wanting in the old text, but given in Davenant's 
version of the play. It both saves the metre and helps the sense 






P. 105. Better be with the dead, 

Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace, 
Than on the torture of the mind to lie, &c. — So the second 
folio. The first has peace instead of place. But peace is nowise that 
which Macbeth has been seeking: his end was simply to gain the 
throne, the place which he now holds, and the fear of losing which is 
the very thing that keeps peace from him. The methods by which 
some editors try to justify the old reading seem to me altogether too 
ingenious and too fine. 

P. 107. Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond 

Which keeps me paled. — The old text has pale instead of 
paled. Probably the Poet wrote paPd or paid ; and here, as often, 
final d and final e were confounded. The correction is Staunton's. It 
is hardly needful to observe how well paled brings out the Poet's mean- 
ing ; which evidently was, that Banquo's life was, so to speak, a strong 
bond that kept Macbeth " bound-in to saucy doubts and fears." See 
foot-note 15. 

ACT III., SCENE IV. 

P. 1 10. 'Tis better thee without than him within. — So Han- 

mer and Collier's second folio. The original has " than he within." 

P. in. Get thee gone : to-morrow 

We'll hear't, ourself, again. — Instead of ourself, which 
Capell proposed, the original has ourselves, which I have tried in vain 
to understand. The use of ourselves for each ether, as it has been ex- 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 95 

plained, is not English. I suspect the true reading to be " We'll hear 
you telVt again." The pronoun our seems quite out of place here ; 
and we have many instances of our and your confounded, as also of 
your and you ; and telVt might easily be misprinted selves, when the 
long s was used. I cannot now recover the source of the proposed 
reading. — The original has hear, also, instead of hear't. — Theobald's 
correction. 

P. 113. Blood hath been shed ere now : i' the olden time, 
Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal, 
Ay, and since too, &c. — I here adopt Mr. P. A. Daniel's 
punctuation, which, I think, greatly helps the sense. The passage is 
commonly printed with a comma after ere now, and a colon or semi- 
colon after gentle weal. 

P. 114. But now they rise again, 

With twenty mortal gashes on their crowns, &c. — The 

original has " mortal murders," which is justly condemned by Walker : 
"Murders occurs four lines above, and murder two lines below. This, 
by the way, would alone be sufficient to prove that murders was cor- 
rupt. 'Mortal murders,' too, seems suspicious." Walker, however, 
proposes no substitute : that in the text is Lettsom's : " Read ' With 
twenty mortal gashes on their crowns.' Macbeth is thinking of what- 
he has just heard from the Murderer : — 

With twenty trenched gashes on his head, 
The least a death to nature." 

P. 115. If trembling I inhabit then, protest me 

The baby of a girl. — I keep the old reading here, because I 
cannot see that any of the changes made or proposed really help the 
matter. Theobald thought it should be, "If trembling me inhibit?' 
Pope changed inhabit to inhibit ; and Steevens proposed thee for then. 
Johnson conjectured " If trembling I evade it, then protest me," &c. 
This, I think, is the best of them all, as regards the sense. Collier's 
second folio reads "If trembling I exhibit"; which turns trembling 
into a substantive. "If trembling I unknight me," "If trembling I 
inherit," "If trembling I flinch at it" have also been proposed. Dyce 
prints " If trembling I inhibit thee." But I think the old reading ad- 
mits of a sense not unfitting. See foot-note 17. 



TH. 



196 MACBE' 

P. 116. And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, 

When mine are blanch'd with fear. — The original reads 
" mine is blanch'd." But, as mine clearly refers to cheeks, it is hardly 
possible that is can be right. Hanmer and some others read cheek ; 
but surely, as Dyce notes, the plural is required there. 

P. 117. There is not one of them but in his house 

I keep a servant fee'd. — So Pope. The original has "There's 
not a one." Theobald reads "There's not a Thane"; White, "There's 
not a man." 

P. 117. I will to-morrow — 

Ay, and betimes I will — to th' "Weird Sisters. — The orig- 
inal quite untunes the rhythm of the line by having nothing in the 
place of Ay. The insertion was proposed anonymously. 



ACT III., SCENE V. 

P. 119. [Music and a Song within: Come away, come away, 
&c. — Thus much is all that the original prints of the song here used. 
I subjoin, from The Witch, by Middleton, the whole song, or rather 
musical dialogue, which begins with the forecited words : — 

Song above. Come away, come away, 

Hecate, Hecate, come away ! 
Hecate. I come, I come, I come, I come, 

With all the speed I may, 

With all the speed I may. 

Where's Stadlin? 
Voice above. Here. 
Hecate. Where's Puckle? 
Voice above. Here ; 

And Hoppo too, and Hellwain too; 

We lack but you, we lack but you: 

Come away, make up the count. 
Hecate. I will but 'noint, and then I mount. 

[A Spirit like a cat descends 
Voice above. There's one come down to fetch his dues, 

A kiss, a coll, a sip of blood ; 

And why thou stay'st so long, I muse, I muse, 

Since the air's so sweet and good. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 197 

Hecate. O, art thou come? What news, what news? 
Spirit. All goes still to our delight : 

Either come, or else refuse, refuse. 
Hecate. Now I'm furnish 'd for the flight. 

Fire. Hark, hark ! the cat sings a brave treble in her own language 
Hecate. [Going up.] Now I go, now I fly, 

Malkin my sweet spirit and I. 

O, what a dainty pleasure 'tis 

To ride in the air 

When the Moon shines fair, 

And sing and dance, and toy and kiss! 

Over woods, high rocks, and mountains, 

Over seas, our mistress' fountains, 

Over steeples, towers, and turrets, 

We fly by night, 'mongst troops of spirits: 

No ring of bells to our ears sounds, 

No howls of wolves, no yelps of hounds; 

No, not the noise of water's breach, 

Or cannon's throat, our height can reach. 
Voices above. No ring of bells, &c. 



ACT III., SCENE VI. 

P. 120. Who can now want the thought, how monstrous 

It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain 

To kill their gracious father ? — The original reads " Who 
cannot want the thought," &c. This gives a sense just the opposite of 
what was manifestly intended. Keightley proposes " We cannot want 
the thought"; which would yield the right sense indeed, but at the 
cost of too much force and point of expression. The Edinburgh Re- 
view, July, 1869, undertakes to vindicate the old reading by showing 
that cannot want was, and still is, often used in the sense of cannot 
lack or cannot be without. This is very true, but I think it quite misses 
the point ; and I am sure it is no more than we all knew before. The 
reading in the text was proposed by Cartwright, but occurred to me 
independently. 

P. 120. The son of Duncan, 

From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth, 
Lives in the English Court. — The original has Sonnss m 
stead of son. Corrected by Theobald. 



I9 8 MACBETH. 

P. 121. Keep from our feasts and banquets bloody knives ; 
Do faithful homage, and receive free honours. — So Lett 

som. The original has Free instead of Keep. Malone proposed, and 
Rann adopted, " Our feasts and banquets free from bloody knives." 

P. 121. And this report 

Hath so exasperate the King, that he, &c. — The original 
reads " exasperate their King." Corrected by Hanmer. 



ACT IV., SCENE I. 

P. 122. Harpy cries : — 'tis time, 'tis time. — The original has 
Harpier, the word having probably been written Harpie. Of course 
it stands for some animal, real or fabulous, which is supposed to be 
serving the Witches as a familiar, and giving them a signal. But I 
think there was no real animal so called ; and the Poet most likely 
had in mind the harpies of Virgil. The correction was proposed by 
Steevens. 

P 122. Toad, that under the cold stone 

Days and nights hast thirty-one, &c. — The old text is with- 
out the, which was supplied by Rowe. 

P. 124. Enter Hecate. — Here the original has the stage-direction, 
"Enter Hecat, and the other three Witches.'" It is not easy to say posi- 
tively what this means ; but the probability is, that in Middleton's 
ordering of the matter Hecate came with three ordinary witches to aid 
the Weird Sisters in the performance of their Satanic ritual. The 
Clarendon Editors print "Enter Hecate to the other three Witches" 
thus substituting to for and. 

P. 124. Music and a Song: Black Spirits, &c. — Here, again, 
as in iii. 5, the original merely indicates the song by printing the first 
words of it. And here, again, I subjoin the song as it stands in Thi 
Witch : — 

Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray, 
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may ! 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 99 

Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky; 

Liard, Robin, you must bob in. 
Round, around, around, about, about! 
All ill come running in, all good keep out ! 

f 125. Though the treasure 

Of Nature's germens tumble all together, &c. — The orig- 
inal has " Natures GermaineT But the plural is evidently required 5 
and we have the same spelling of germens in King Lear, iii. 2: 
" Cracke Natures moulds, all germaines spill at once that makes in- 
gratefull Man." 

P. 127. Rebellion's head rise never, till the wood 

Of Birnam rise, &c. — So Hanmer and Collier's second folio. 
The original has " Rebellious dead, rise never," &c. 

P. 128. Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs : — and thy air, 
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first. — The orig- 
inal has hair instead of air. The correction is Johnson's. The Poet 
elsewhere uses air for look or appearance. A family likeness is evi- 
dently the thing meant ; and hair is not general enough for that. See 
foot-note 16. 

P. 129. Horrible sight ! — Nay, now I see 'tis true ; 

For the blood-bolter'd Banquo, &c. — So Pope. The orig- 
inal is without Nay. Steevens inserted Ay. 

P. 130. This deed I'll do before this purpose cool : 

But no more sights ! — This accords with Macbeth's exclama- 
tion, a little before, at the vision of Banquo and his descendants : 
" Horrible sight ! " Notwithstanding, much fault has been found with 
sights. Collier's second folio changes it to flights, referring to the flight 
of Macduff. White substitutes sprites. Both changes, it seems to me, 
impair the poetry without bettering the sense ; and sprites is particu- 
larly unhappy. 

P. 131. But cruel are the times, when we are traitors, 

And do not know't ourselves. — So Hanmer and Collier's 
second folio. The original has * not know ourselves." 



200 MACBETH. 

P. 131. But float upon a wild and violent sea 

Each way it moves. — So Mr. P. A. Daniel. The original 
has " Each way, and move "/ out of which it is not easy to make any 
thing. Theobald printed " Each way and wave" and Steevens con- 
jectured "And each way move " ; but surely Daniel's reading is much 
the best. 




P. 134. Wherefore should I fly ? 

I've done no harm. — Instead of Wherefore, the old text has 
Whither, which does not suit the context at all. Lettsom proposes 
Why. 

P. 134. Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain ! — -The original has 
" thou shagge-ear'd Villaine." Doubtless, as Dyce notes, ear'd is " a 
corruption of hear'd, which is an old spelling of hair'd." And he fully 
substantiates this by quotations. 

P. 135. Hold fast the mortal sword; and like good men 

Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom. — The original has 
" our downfall Birthdome." 

P. 135. I'm young; but something 

You may deserve of him through me. — The original has 
discerne instead of deserve. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 136. Wear thou thy wrongs, 

Thy title is affeer'd ! — So Malone and Collier's second folio. 
The original has " The Title, is ajfear'd." 

P. 141. Whither indeed, before thy here-approach, &c. — The 
original has they instead of thy. Corrected in the second folio. 



P. 146. This tune goes manly. 

Come, go we to the King. — The original has time instead 
of Hwe. Corrected by Rowe, 






CRITICAL NOTES. 201 



ACT V., SCENE I. 



P. 148. Doct. You see, her eyes are open. 

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut. — The original has 
' their sense are shut." Doubtless an accidental repetition from the 
line above. Rowe's correction. 

ACT V., SCENE II. 

P. 151. He cannot buckle his distemper'd course 

Within the belt of rule. — So Walker and Collier's second 
folio. The old text has " distemper'd cause" As Macbeth is said to 
be acting like a madman, or going wild and crazy in his course, there 
need, I think, be no scruple of the correction. 

ACT V., SCENE III. 

P. 154. This push 

Will chair me ever, or dis-seat me now. — So Percy and 
Collier's second folio. The original reads " Will cheer e me ever, or 
dis-eate me now." The second folio changes dis-eate to disease. But 
the reading thus given seems to me very tame and unsuited to the oc- 
casion. Chair is often used for throne ; and Macbeth may well think 
that the present assault will either confirm his tenure of the throne, or 
oust him from it entirely. 

P. 154. I have lived long enough : my way of life 

Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf. — Collier's second 
folio has " my May of life "; and so Johnson proposed to read. This 
reading would imply Macbeth to be a young man, which he is not, and 
to be struck with premature old age, which cannot be his meaning. 
As Gifford says, " way of life " is " a simple periphrasis for life" Mac- 
beth is in the autumn of life, is verging upon old age, the winter of 
life ; for such is the meaning of " the sere, the yellow leaf"; and what 
he here laments so pathetically is, that his old age cannot have the 
comforts, honours, friendships which naturally attend it, and are need- 
ful, to make it supportable, 



202 MACBETH. 

P. 154. Cure her of that : 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? — So the 

second folio. The first omits her. 

P. 155*. Cleanse the stuff 'd bosom of that perilous stuff. — 
It has been thought, as it might well be, that stuff occurs once too 
often in this line. Collier's second folio has " perilous grief"; which 
is less acceptable than " Cleanse the foul bosom," proposed by Stee- 
vens. The other conjectures offered seem to me out of the question. 

P. 155. What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, 

Would scour these English hence ? — Instead of senna, 
the original has Cyme, which is not, and never was, the English name 
of any drug. The correction is from the fourth folio. 



ACT V., SCENE IV. 

P. 156. For, where there is advantage to be ta'en, 

Both more and less have given him the revolt. — So 

Walker. The original reads "advantage to be given." Collier's sec- 
ond folio reads " advantage to be gotten." 



ACT V., SCENE V. 

P. 157. The time has been, my senses would have quail'd 
To hear a night-shriek. — So Collier's second folio. The 
original reads " my sences would have cooVd "; which, surely, is quite 
too tame for the occasion. In Julius C&sar, iv., 3, we have " That 
makest my blood cold"; but this is very different from "makes my senses 
cold." Dyce remarks that " examples of the expression, senses quail- 
ing, may be found in our early writers." 

P. 159. I should report that which I'd say I saw, 
But know not how to do't. 

Macb. Well, say it, sir. — The original 

reads " which / say I saw," and " Well, say sir." The first of thes« 
corrections is Hanmer's ; the other, Pope's. 






CRITICAL NOTES. 203 

P. 159. I pall in resolution, and begin 

To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend, &c. — The old text 
has " I pull in resolution." Johnson proposed pall, which, as the 
Clarendon edition observes, " better expresses the required sense, in- 
voluntary loss of heart and hope." Besides, with pull, " we must em- 
phasize in, contrary to the rhythm of the verse." 

ACT V., SCENE VIII. 

P. 164. And damn'd be he that first cries " Hold." —The old 

text has him instead of he. Corrected by Pope. 

P. 164. [Exeunt, fighting. Alarums. — In the original, this 
stage-direction is immediately followed, in the next line, by another, 
which is difficult to explain, and is omitted in all modern editions 
known to me; thus: " Enter fighting, and Macbeth slaine." Then 
comes the stage -direction, which modern editors retain, "Retreat, and 
Flourish. Enter with Drumme and Colours, Malcolm, Seyward" &c. 
What makes the matter still more perplexing is, that, nineteen lines 
further on, the original, without any intervening exit, has the stage- 
direction, "Enter Macduffe ; with Macbeths head." The likeliest ex- 
planation seems to be, that the play originally ended with "Exeunt, 
■fighting" and that what follows was afterwards tacked on by Middle- 
ton, in order to gratify the audience with more fighting, and with the 
sight of Macbeth's head on a pole. Surely it is not like Shakespeare's 
Macduff thus to mutilate the body of Macbeth after killing him; arj 
act neither gentle nor brave. 



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